

Ask HN: Who is on my ballot tomorrow? (US) - blamarvt

Tomorrow is the midterm elections, and I have no idea who I&#x27;m voting for. Not only do I have no idea who I&#x27;m voting for...but there isn&#x27;t even a convenient place to get a list of all candidates on <i>my</i> ballot. Is there?<p>Does anyone know of a site which will tell me, based on my address, who will be on the ballot tomorrow?<p>I can get this information through my state website but it&#x27;s not straight-forward (I have to look up each elected position individually!).<p>Help!
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sharth
1\. It's very difficult to tell you what's on your ballot when it's not clear
what state you are in.

2\. [http://ballotpedia.org/](http://ballotpedia.org/) has a list of most of
the elections, but certainly not all. For example, it's missing one of the
county-wide ballot initiatives for me.

3\. If you are in maryland, this website may be helpful:
[https://voterservices.elections.maryland.gov/VoterSearch](https://voterservices.elections.maryland.gov/VoterSearch)

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blamarvt
Thanks for the links. While I did ask about myself, I was also hoping to find
a general information resource I could point friends and family to which was
easy to use. So far I haven't seen anything but
[http://ballotpedia.org](http://ballotpedia.org) is promising!

Also, your second link for MD specifically __does __give me a sample ballot
PDF customized to my legislative and congressional districts but I 'd have to
copy/paste all of the candidate names to do research on them.

Thanks again.

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anywherenotes
I live in NJ, sometime last week I got a paper which shows exact layout of
buttons there will be at election with all the names. So in theory I can
practice at home pressing on buttons (I think the paper folds out to same size
as the actual booth machine).

So it's pretty convenient. Of course I still have to go online to look each
individual's positions, but there's no way to present an unbiased view of each
candidate, at very least you will present them in some order, and even that
matters.

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sp332
It's kind of a mess, but does this page help?
[http://www.fec.gov/data/CandidateSummary.do](http://www.fec.gov/data/CandidateSummary.do)

Edit: You can find which district you're in by putting your ZIP code in here
[http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/](http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/)

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blamarvt
Thanks for the link. Lots of good information out there, just I think there is
a real need for it to be made more accessible for lazy people like me.

~~~
sp332
Found this today
[http://yourfuckingpollingplace.com/](http://yourfuckingpollingplace.com/)

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eggoa
I don't know what state you're in, but google for your secretary of state's
website. They'll usually have all the info.

~~~
blamarvt
Yup!
[http://www.elections.state.md.us/elections/2014/primary_cand...](http://www.elections.state.md.us/elections/2014/primary_candidates/)

They have all of the information there but I would have to know all of my
districts to get a complete view... it's not as simple as I'd like and from
what I can see there definitely isn't a nation-wide site/app which can tell me
who is on my ballot so I can educate myself prior to an election.

~~~
maxerickson
This seems to be what you want:

[https://voterservices.elections.maryland.gov/VoterSearch](https://voterservices.elections.maryland.gov/VoterSearch)

On the page it says _You can use this tool to:_ ... _View your sample ballot._
"<state> sample ballot" is probably the most effective search to find these
things.

My state lets anyone look at any ballot, that seems better than asking for
voter information to show something (but you have to look up the district info
first). Maybe I just didn't find the option there.

I think the value provided by aggregating the info that most states already
have obligations to provide isn't that huge an opportunity. "Vote MD" seems to
try, but I just came across it by accident just now, I don't know anything
about it.

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massappeal
democracy.com and crowdpac.com I think both have info on local candidates
available

