Revision [5746]
This is an old revision of PCTProcessesOverview made by DarrenMcDivitt on 2012-02-16 12:53:51.
Summary of the Political Courage Test
What is the Political Courage Test?
The Political Courage Test is a test of candidates willingness to tell citizens their positions on the issues. The Test asks candidates specifically, "Are you willing to tell citizens where you stand on the issues you may face if elected?" In order to pass the test, the candidate simply has to answer a few questions on their issue positions.
How is the Political Courage Test constructed?
The issues included in the Political Courage Test have been researched by the department staff and reviewed an approved by the Project Vote Smart Board. The issues included on the test are highly salient and likely to be addressed in the next legislative session. This is determined by examining national and state polls, majority, minority, and third party platforms, key addresses, and media coverage.
How is the Political Courage Test conducted?
All candidates for President, Congress, Governor, and state legislature are tested over the course of 4-6 weeks. During this time, Project Vote Smart contacts the candidates (documenting every point of contact or attempted contact), encouraging them to take the Test.
Should a candidate for President, Congress, or Governor choose not to respond, Project Vote Smart will research his/her issue positions. These inferred determinations are provided to the public on Votesmart.org and on VoteEasy.
What is VoteEasy?
VoteEasy is a flash-based interactive tool that allows users to take the Political Courage Test and find which candidates will best represent their interests.
Standard Staffing
Director: Oversees all PCT research/operations, including:
- Solve departmental problems
- Create and maintain departmental calendars, approve all sub-departmental calendars
- Manage the research and writing of the Political Courage Tests
- Coordinate with Research and Media departments
- Generate all Press Reports
- Release all PCTs
- Manage quick response team: candidate fights/research disputes
- Assist in the checking of PCTs, bios, and candidate lists
- Oversee the supervision of interns and member volunteers
Administrator: Oversees the administration of the Political Courage Test
- Organize and manage mailings
- Create and maintain administrative calendars and checklists
- Coordinate candidate communications: Political Courage Test e-mail account, phone calls, e-mails, faxes, and snail mail
- Manage submitted PCTs and bios and organize checks
- Training of interns and member volunteers on administrative tasks
Quality Control: Oversees elections coverage
- Collect and enter candidate lists (and updates): federal, statewide, and state legislative
- Track exception candidates
- Gather and update primary/general election results
- Create and maintain QC calendars and checklists
- Assist PCT Administration
- Training of interns and member volunteers on quality control tasks
Researcher: Oversees the research and writing of the Political Courage Tests
- Research and write Federal and State-Level Political Courage Tests
- Manage research on Presidential, Congressional, and Gubernatorial candidates' issue positions
- Create and maintain research calendars and checklists
- Code Political Courage Tests
- Assist checking PCTS and bios
- Training of interns and member volunteers on Political Courage Test research tasks
Political Courage Test Interns are responsible for the following:
- Researching candidate biographical information
- Processing/ checking submitted Political Courage Tests
- Formatting candidate lists/assigning candidate Ids
- Assisting candidate contacts (mailings, phone calls)
- Assist checking PCTS and bios
- Researching issue positions for federal/gubernatorial candidates (VoteEasy research)
Overview of Candidate Coverage
We are one of the few election information sources that treats all candidates equally, covering all candidates on the ballot regardless of popularity, how well they're funded, who parties support, or who's supported by special interests. The idea here is to move the locus of control in elections to the voters themselves. It is Project Vote Smart's goal to provide as much relevant, unbiased information as possible for each candidate, leaving it entirely up to the voters to make judgments on the candidates.
While it would be nice to have comprehensive coverage for all candidates, our level of staffing forces us to prioritize certain offices over others. Federal offices will typically get the most coverage, as they are of national interest and represent large geographic areas and/or large populations. Next in line are statewide offices, followed by the state legislatures. We are one of the few websites that actually provides information on state legislative and statewide offices. Unfortunately we just do not have the capacity to cover local elections, judicial elections (besides those of the highest court), or local ballot measures (see the quality control section for how to find information about these other elections). We do try to provide coverage for candidates before their primaries, but this more than doubles our pool of candidates, making it difficult to provide comprehensive coverage for everybody. As of 2012, these our plans for coverage of candidates, subject to change (note: incumbents will likely have additional information related to their current office):
P= Primary Candidates(tasks done pre-primary), G=General Election Candidates (tasks done post-primary/pre-general)
| U.S. Congress | Federal/Gub Special Elections | Governor | Lieutenant Governor and Statewide Offices | State Judicial | State Legislature | President | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election info and Contact info on Candidate List and Campaign Website | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G |
| Researched Bios | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P(if time)/G | P/G |
| Mailed Out Bio Forms | G | G | G | G | G | G | G |
| Administer PCT | P/G | possibly G | G | G or N/A | N/A | G | P/G |
| Vote Easy | G | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | P/G for majors |
| Position Papers | P/G | P/G | P/G | P (if time)/G | P(if time)/G | P(if time)/G | P/G |
| Speeches from Campaign Website | G | G | G | P/G for majors | |||
| Candidate Ratings and Evaluations (if available) | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | possibly |
| Endorsements | P (if time)/G | G | G | G | G | G | P/G |
| Researched Photos | P (if time)/G | P (if time) G | P (if time)/G | P (if time)/G | G (if time) | G | P/G for majors |
| Campaign Finance Information (if available from CRP/NIMSP) | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G | P/G |
Other Election-Related Coverage (Research Department)
Ballot Measures
The purpose of the Project Vote Smart Ballot Measures Program is to provide information for voters on the various statewide initiatives, referenda, state questions, bond measures, or constitutional amendments that voters are presented with. We cover statewide ballot measures initiated by the people or by the legislature during primary, general, and special elections. Our content is retrieved from Secretary of State's offices, and includes: the actual text of the measure, links to the original legislation, any summaries of the ballot measure we can find, the pros and cons, election results, and vote totals. Currently, this information cannot be accessed through a zip-to-district search, and must be selected from the menu on the left. As a result, many voters do not know we have this information- you should direct them to it as much as possible.
Voter Registration
While we call this section "voter registration" we actually have other information that would be useful to voters: how to verify registration, voting absentee, early voting, and polling place information. This information is retrieved from each state’s election website, and is usually updated twice a year.
Local Election Offices
If it is close to the day of the election, or if someone has a complicated situation that you wouldn’t be able to answer (like they have just moved to another district and want to know where to vote), it is best to refer them to their local election office. These offices are grouped by locality- typically, it is their county election office, but some states have regional or town election offices.
Election Resources
Our election resources section is really just another way to get to our voter registration information, local election office directory, and to find the contact information for the state’s elections office and campaign finance office.
Accessing Information
Besides our website, we provide elections-related information through our U.S. Government Owner's Manual (formerly the Voter's Self-Defense Manual), our Voter's Research Hotline, on other websites through our API, and via our new web-based tool, in which citizens are able to compare candidates' issue positions to their own as well as compare candidates' issue positions side-by-side.
