Elections 2008
Register to vote and learn about the candidates
Brookings Institution
This series of charts outlines the candidates' positions on the most critical topics facing America's next President.
Register to vote, find out about voting requirements in your state,and get the positions of all the candidates--national, state, and local. Includes judicial elections as well as school board races by state.
Minnesota Legislators Voting Records
The source to see how current legislators voted in the past.
Project VoteSmart
Provides comprehensive information about candidates from issue statements to campaign financing. Get a free "Voter's Self-Defense Manual."
Read biographies and position papers for all presidential & congressional candidates, see what the candidates actually voted for, bring up a sample ballot for your state, and register to vote.
Select a Candidate
Learn which candidate most closely aligns with your views. From Minnesota Public Radio.
Who's telling the the truth?
A nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. The site monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.
PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly to help you find the truth in the presidential campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will analyze the candidates' speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine whether the claims are accurate. Use the site's "Truth O Meter" and the "Flip O Meter" to quickly determine a candidate's level of truth or falsehood and see the times candidates have flip flopped. Get the "pants on fire" ratings here.
Urban Legends Reference Page - Politics
Follow the money
The FEC is an independent regulatory agency charged with disclosing campaign finance information, enforcing the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and over seeing the public funding of Presidential elections. Lists contributions to all candidates by state--who contributes (by individual, pac, party, and candidate) and how much. Archives back to 1999.
Minnesota Campaign Finance and Pubic Disclosure Board
View funding reports by candidate, political party unit, political committee and fund, and lobbyists.
From a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group that tracks money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Provides a comprehensive resource for campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis.
Television ad spending in the Twin Cities area. Who's spending, how much, on what channels, on what programs--browse the data.
Official candidate and party sites
Presidential Election - Official Candidates
Major Political Parties- Democratic Party of Minnesota (Democratic - Farmer - Labor Party)
- Green Party of Minnesota
- Independence Party of Minnesota
- Republican Party of Minnesota
Election law
From the Moritz College of Law, this site is "designed to illuminate public understanding of election law and its role in our nation's democracy."
From Cornell, the LII's "Laws About" elections pages provide brief summaries of election laws with links to key primary source material, other Internet resources, and useful offnet references.
National Association of Secretaries of State
State Election Laws & Administration Issues. Concise information on election laws and regulations
Find out which states have laws giving employees the right to take time off from work to vote.
Historical information
From the Museum of the Moving Image, "contains more than 300 commercials, from every presidential election since 1952, when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced Dwight Eisenhower that short ads played during such popular TV programs as I Love Lucy would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run."
Presidential Job Approval Ratings (via the Roper Center)
Compiles approval ratings from 5 polls. From Roosevelt to Bush.
U. S. Electoral College (via National Archives)
Presidential election vote totals and box scores back to 1789 along with details about how the college works.