The right to vote is an incredible right. But at the same time it is an incredible headache. I live in a small town, so the actual voting process went fine. What drives me nuts is trying to become an educated voter.

My sources for information are the internet and the radio. The radio had many interviews and debates, but the only positions for which I managed to form a decision were the presidential and gubernatorial. The radio did cover the US senate and house and the NH senate and house, but I never seemed to get a grasp on who actually cared about the issues I did.

This left me with my usual last minute crunch on the internet. My first problem was finding what positions were going to be on the ballot. I apparently failed because I got surprised at the polls with a pack of county level offices. For US congress, there was a decent amount of information available online, but as usual there wasn’t as much information on the challengers because they had no voting record. And in general it is a lot easier to find what the candidates say they will do, than actual evidence of their behavior and competence.

Finally I worked on the NH level races. The information I could find on the internet was really spotty. For the senate and executive council I basically found the candidate’s statements and nothing else. The house race was hopeless. In NH there is one representative per 3,000 people, so I had to pick 4. I ended up finding 3 activist groups with different adgendas I think I agree with and voted for each of their highest ranked candidate.

So how do mere mortals decide ther vote if I find it so difficult? Is there some magic information in a newspaper to which I am not subscribed?