Policies & Guidance

Voter Guide Best Practices

1.     Purpose

One of the greatest barriers to greater voter participation is a lack of knowledge of candidates, candidate positions, and ballot initiatives. Voter guides provide a valued, nonpartisan resource for voters to assess their choices during elections.

The League of Women Voters has built up high recognition value and reservoirs of community trust by providing the public accurate, nonpartisan services and information on elections and governmental issues. The public respects the League’s commitment to factual, unbiased information. This respect increases community support for LWVMN activities and can recruit new members. Producing voter guides with candidate questionnaires requires especially careful attention and sound judgment in order to protect LWVMN’s nonpartisan reputation and the public’s trust.

This policy establishes requirements and best practices for development and implementation of voter guides by LWVMN. This policy also ensures that voter guides and candidate questionnaires published by the League follow requirements for 501(c)3 organizations.

2.     Development of Candidate Questionnaires

• When provided by the budget, LWVMN will fund use of Vote411.org for voter guides for federal, state, and local elections. LWVMN will provide overall coordination of Vote411.org to reduce administrative burden on local Leagues.

• LWVMN staff will work with the Voter Service Chair or their designee to develop candidate questionnaires for federal and statewide races.

• For state legislative and local candidate questionnaires on Vote411.org, local Leagues will have an opportunity to choose topics or questions of particular interest to their local community.

• LWVMN and local Leagues may work with other organizations to publish voter guides that contain candidate questionnaires. Leagues must consider carefully how the partnership might affect the public perception of the League’s nonpartisanship. Leagues also must communicate to partners that the League cannot deviate from its nonpartisan policy or any procedures that ensure fair treatment of all candidates. Leagues can use the “Guidance for Local Leagues on Coalitions and Partnerships” available in Member Resources to evaluate potential partners. While Leagues may solicit input from partners, each League is responsible for the final choice and wording of questions.

• Candidate questionnaires must never:

  • Contain League positions or compare candidates to a League position.

  • Ask a candidate to pledge their support or opposition to a cause (e.g., “If elected, will you promise to support action on climate change?”).

  • Provide an evaluation or judgement of the candidates’ responses (e.g., plus or minus signs; color-coding answers green or red).

  • Be inappropriately hostile, embarrassing, or ask questions that are personal in nature (e.g., asking about a candidate’s affair).

  • Ask questions of judicial candidates that the Code of Judicial Conduct prohibit the candidates from answering. In practice, this means that questions are generally limited to information about professional background and qualifications.

  • Contain questions created in coordination or collaboration with, or at the suggestion of, a candidate or party or a candidate or party’s agent.

3.     Best Practices for Writing Questions

• Questions should be the same for all candidates in an electoral race. Candidates in the same electoral race should not receive different questions.

• Questions should be open-ended questions that allow the candidate to explain their answers to questions. Questions should not be closed-ended questions (e.g., “Yes or No?”).

• Questions should be about a broad range of issues (e.g., asking about three different issues such as the economy, immigration, and environmental issues). Questions should not be limited to only one or two topics (e.g., asking only about health care issues).

• Questions should be about the interests of the relevant electorate as a whole. These interests might not align with League priorities or positions or be of interest to League members. Question should not be solely about the interests of League members or a specific subset of voters.

• Questions should be relevant to the elective office for which the candidates are running (e.g., questions for school board questions should be about local school policies and practices, not about foreign policy).

• Questions should be brief and about only one issue at a time.

• Questions should be about the future, rather than hindsight.

• Questions should not be biased or leading, i.e., written in such a way that one answer appears to be favored over another, hints at the “correct” answer, or otherwise reflects a specific policy agenda. See Appendix A for guidance on identifying and rewriting potentially biased or leading questions.

4.     Requirements for Soliciting Candidate Responses

Invitations to candidates to participate in answering candidate questionnaires must:

• Be distributed to:

  • all candidates in a race; or

  • only to candidates who qualify under objective criteria that were established in writing well in advance of the candidate filing period.

• Be distributed to all candidates in a race in the same manner and at the same time when possible.

• Clearly identify a word or space limit for each response.

5.     Best Practices for Soliciting Candidate Responses

Invitations to candidates to participate in answering candidate questionnaires should:

• Be sent as soon as possible after candidate filings have closed so that candidates have a sufficient time to respond while also giving voters access to information as early as possible.

• Provide as much information as possible about how the questions were developed and how the responses will be published so that candidates understand the process and are comfortable responding.

• Clearly state the rules for participation, such as:

  • A notice that responses that do not meet word or space limits will be truncated.

  • A notice that responses will not be edited or checked for grammar or spelling errors.

  • The date that responses are due, if a voter guide will be printed for publication.

  • What will be printed if a candidate does not respond (such as either “This candidate has not yet responded.” or “This candidate did not respond before the printing deadline; please check Vote411.org for a response.”).

  • Whom to contact if they have questions.

6.     Publication and Distribution

Voter guides with candidate questionnaires must publish:

• The questions with the same phrasing that was given to the candidates;

• Candidate responses exactly as candidates provide them, i.e., without any editing, except to truncate responses that do not meet space or word count limits;

• Candidate responses from all candidates in the same format, font, print size, etc.;

• Voter guides to the public as widely as practicable;

• A disclaimer and reminder that “The League of Women Voters does not support or oppose any political party or candidate for office.”

7.     Additional and Supplemental Voter Guides

Nothing in this policy prohibits a local League from publishing voter guides on state legislative and local elections in addition to what will be available on Vote411.org. Local Leagues still must follow the requirements in the policy and are encouraged to follow the best practices identified in this policy when publishing additional or supplemental voter guides.

8.     References

26 USC 501(c)(3). IRS Fact Sheet 2006-17. Revenue Ruling 78-248. Voters’ Guides Best Practices by LWVUS/EF. Are your Voters’ Guide Questions as Unbiased as you Think? by LWVUS/EF.

Appendix A