Who To Vote For In The 2012 Election? Websites, Quizzes And Resources For Undecided Voters
Hey, procrastinator! Have you decided whether you will vote for President Barack Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney on Election Day 2012 yet?
With election day approaching Tuesday, it's time to make a decision.
As the candidates finish their visits to battleground states to appeal to voters, it seems everywhere you turn there's a television advertisement, billboard or email in your inbox urging you to vote for one of the candidates. For many, it seems like the election has been going on since the beginning of time, especially for the little girl in Colorado, who said she was sick of NPR's coverage of "Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney." Others are just frustrated in their decision-making.
While many voters are campaigning, rallying and coaxing others to vote for their candidate, some people are still considering whether or not they even want to vote, let alone who they will choose.
But the good news is: It's not too late to decide, even if there's less than 24 hours until the polls open.
As long as you registered in advance according to your state's guidelines and are 18 years of age, you can vote. But how do you decide who to vote for? What issues and solutions are most important in your decision? Does character matter? Have you read both candidate's standpoints? And most importantly, how do you decide who to support if you're stuck somewhere in the middle?
Thankfully, a number of websites and unbiased resources are out there for you to get informed for the presidential election, including quizzes to help you decide who to vote for, matchmakers and nonpartisan information lists. And once you've decided, make sure you figure out the polling place nearest to you and vote!
ProCon.org
ProCon.org, an "independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit public charity" website, has a 75-question quiz that will match to the presidential candidate -- including third-party candidates Virgil Goode, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein -- you most endorse based on percentage agreement. If you select "neither or unsure" for the questions, those questions are not calculated in the results, which are actually tallied up in real time on the side margin as you select. The site also has a graph of the candidates' positions on issues from abortion to the war on terror.
iSideWith.com
iSideWith.com has a 24-question quiz encompassing social, science, immigration, foreign policy, health care, economic, domestic policy and environmental issues. Users can select the importance of each question on a five-tier sliding scale to determine results. According to the website, more than five million people have used iSideWith to select their candidate. The site also displays results by state, a blog and a candidate comparison graph.
ABC News
ABC News has an animated game called "The Match-o-Matic Game" to hep select a candidate where users select a series of quotations and statements made directly by candidates -- who, in the 11-question quiz, are anonymous -- that best reflect their views. As users take the quiz with questions from the economy to social security to military to immigration, cartoons of the candidates pop up encouraging the user to finish the quiz. After it matches you to candidate, you can review each quote.
OnTheIssues.com
OnTheIssues.com has a 20-question 2012 Presidential Quiz that allows users to answer individual rights, domestic issues, economics issues and defense and international issues questions on a Likert scale. After determining the score in both social and economic terms, links to candidates' answers, stances and biographies are listed.
VoteHelp.org
VoteHelp.org has a nonpartisan presidential candidate calculator that compares both Romney and Obama. The user can weigh the importance of their stance on the issue as they select their answers. There are 10 questions with an optional 10 additional questions before the results are displayed, along with links to news articles where the words of each candidate are cited.
VoteSmart.org
VoteSmart.org, a nonpartisan online tool, has a vote matcher based on each issue: abortion, Afghanistan, the budget, the eonomy, education, energy, the environment, guns, health care, immigration, marriage, national security and social security. As users answer a question along with its importance, the best candidate matches along with how much courage the candidate has for the issue is displayed. Users do not have to answer all of the questions but rather can pick and choose.
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