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About MyBallot
"A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy ... and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."
James Madison, Author of the U.S. Constitution and 4th President of the United States
Frequently asked questions
What is the purpose of MyBallot?
Who sponsors MyBallot?
How is MyBallot funded?
What doesn't MyBallot work for my zipcode?
What doesn't MyBallot include referendums and all local races?
How do you determine the order that candidates are listed in?
How accurate is MyBallot?
What kind of publicity has MyBallot received?
What kind of feedback does MyBallot get?
How can I get more involved?
Who are the people behind MyBallot?
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In addition to being a quick and simple way to discover the names on your ballot before election day, the volunteers at MyBallot want to make it easy—even fun—for citizens to become engaged at election time. We hope that it will dramatically reduce the time and effort that you need to spend in order to become well-informed about your ballot choices. Just click on a candidate name (or referendum text) for more information.
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The MyBallot initiative is sponsored by E-Democracy.org—a non-profit 501(c)(3), strictly non-partisan, citizen-based organization that seeks to increase citizen participation in elections and public discourse through the use of information and communication. E-Democracy.org/Minnesota E-Democracy launched the world's first election-oriented web site in 1994, and is internationally recognized for its success in improving participation in the democratic process through the use of information networks. MyBallot itself was first launched in 2002.
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All the work performed to both create and support MyBallot has been done on a 100% volunteer basis.
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At the present time, MyBallot only has data for several states. However, with additional volunteers and additional data, we look forward to adding more states in the future.
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We are both limited by volunteer availability and convenient access to the data. Perhaps with your help, we can provide more complete ballot coverage in the future.
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For simplicity, candidates on the sample ballot are in alphabetical order based on their first name. For your actual ballot, the order candidates are listed in is determined by the state legislature and can be a bit involved. For example, Minnesota Statute MS204D.13 specifies that the major party candidates are to be listed first - in ascending order of the total number of votes received in the last state general election. The statute then states that the order of non major party candidates is to be determined by lottery.
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MyBallot is very fortunate to be able to obtain virtually all of it's raw data from the Voter Information Project (VIP). VIP is a project of Democracy Works, a nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit which works closely the Secretary of State office in each state. MyBallot does a fair amount of processing on the VIP raw data in order to create the "sample ballots". Numerous automatic and manual checks are performed to ensure accuracy. Nevertheless, errors can creep in. MyBallot holds itself fully accountable for any errors. As accuracy is very important to the MyBallot staff, please let us know at . if you see or suspect any errors or omissions.
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We have been very fortunate to have had a number of local TV and radio stations provide positive coverage of MyBallot. One notable highlight was a dedicated discussion of MyBallot with the Governor of Minnesota during the Governor's weekly radio address (WCCO radio, October 25, 2002).
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A sample of the feedback received is as follows:
"This is slick! It's quick and clean. This is really a terrific resource." A. Treacy.
"This looks great... it has been a fantastic resource for my classes!" J. Druckman
"I was very pleased to find a comprehensive sample ballot with useful links to backgrounds of the candidates. You're providing a great service." F. Hundt
"For the first time in voting, with use of MyBallot, I was able to complete most of my ballot selections before going to the polls.... I brought a printed copy of MyBallot with me to the polls. This made voting much easier and more accurate for me as I could research my choices days before voting. .." S. Bernis
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If you want a challenge, enjoy taking initiative, and can afford to devote some of your time, please consider taking a look at our Volunteer page.
If you believe that the Internet should be used to improve future elections and governance, consider joining over 4,000 citizens on E-Democracy's low volume e-mail announcement list.
Subscribe here
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In addition to important contributions from several E-Democracy.org volunteers, our art director and HTML production lead, Jason L. Gohlke, is a designer who has been working with the web for over 10 years in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Our project director and principal developer, David Stein, has over 20 years of software development and project management experience in both small and large corporations. He has long been interested in making it easier for people to make better informed choices at election time. Dean Alger, noted author and University of Minnesota Political Science professor is our outreach and communications director. Finally, the E-Democracy.org Board Chair, Steven Clift, provides strategic and tactical advice to the project on a regular basis. Steve is a frequent keynote speaker at international conferences on topics relating to e-democracy and e-government.
We also owe a big thanks to the E-Democracy partners and volunteers for all their interest and support. Without them you may not have found this service. We also want to thank the Minnesota Secretary of State's office and their helpful staff for providing us with all the election data needed by our site. Finally, we want to thank people with Michigan's Publius.org and with California's Smartvoter.org for their advice early on. With these and other efforts, we hope that citizens from every state will someday be able to easily access information online about all their ballot choices.
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