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Election 2008

Voter Registration Information

Missouri Voter Lookup
This is a “secure” website at which you can enter your name and home address to determine if you are registered to vote and to find the location of your polling place. Maintained by the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, which is charged by law with oversight of election laws.

Black Youth Vote
Founded by the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Black Youth Vote! is a national grassroots coalition of organizations and individuals committed to increasing political and civic involvement among Black men and women aged 18-35. This youth led organization seeks to empower Black youth by educating them about the political process and training them to identify issues and influence public policy through participation.

U.S. Electoral College: 2008 Presidential Election
Provides background about the Electoral College and the 2008 presidential election. The Electoral College is the process where "people of the United States vote for the electors who then vote for the President." View how votes are distributed among the states, state laws and requirements, and use the Electoral College calculator to predict who will win the election.

Vote 411.org
Information for every state on how and where to register to vote, eligibility requirements, getting absentee ballots, and everything you need to know about voting, including candidate information. The site includes ballot measures by state and location of polling places. From the League of Women Voters.

Campaign Issues

Campaign 2008: The Presidential Field
The Washington Post has created this issue coverage tracker to help sort out where the candidates stand on various issues. Visitors to the site can review press coverage and opinion writing on the candidates and the major issues here. The issue tracker draws on a wide set of website sources across the political spectrum, including news services, interest groups, bloggers, unions, and activists.

All-American Presidential Forums on PBS
From the Tavis Smiley show – a website for a television broadcast for the 2008 presidential election that "marks the first time that a panel comprised of journalists of color is represented in primetime." Features pages for campaign issues such as criminal justice, affordable neighborhoods, immigration, and environmental justice. Also includes videos, user questions and views, candidate profiles, and other election material.

Election '08: How Green Is Your Candidate?
Interviews, fact sheets, and other material "on the 2008 presidential candidates' energy plans and environmental positions." Includes details about voting records, comments, and positions on greenhouse gas emissions, coal power plants, nuclear power, fuel economy standards, and other energy and environmental topics. From Grist magazine; interviews are in conjunction with Outside magazine.

health08.org
Information about health care issues addressed by the presidential candidates in the 2008 presidential election. Features news, video clips, analysis, poll results, and side-by-side comparisons of the candidates' positions on health care issues (such as expansion of public programs, insurance premium subsidies, cost containment, and financing). Also includes links to campaign resources for each candidate. From the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Popular Mechanics: Geek the Vote 2008
Coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election with an emphasis on science and technology issues. Find candidate proposals for issues such as automotive technology, digital privacy, energy, climate change, firearms, and infrastructure. Also includes related election news.

Youth-Oriented

Comedy Central's Indecision 2008
A humorous take on the 2008 presidential election. Features video clips of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's interviews with 2008 presidential candidates and Colbert's candidacy announcement, humorous candidate profiles, and a blog. Also links to other political humor websites & blogs.

MTV.Com Politics: Choose or Lose
Participate in forums, find out what the issues are and where the candidates stand. Links to getting involved, contacting officials, and registering to vote.

Rock the Vote
This group "is a non-profit, non-partisan organization, founded in 1990." It "engages youth in the political process by incorporating the entertainment community and youth culture into its activities." The site includes information about registering to vote and kits for organizing voter registration drives, links to information about selected issues, and a blog.

Scoop08
Website for a national student newspaper "dedicated to providing in-depth and innovative coverage of the 2008 presidential election." Features articles and editorials (in blog format) from student correspondents from universities and high schools across the country, descriptions of beats and how to get involved as a correspondent, and details about the contributors and advisors (journalism professors and journalists from national media outlets).

VoteGopher
This site was founded by a group of Harvard undergraduates with the purpose of providing a one-stop, easy, and non-partisan source for comparing the candidates' positions on the issues. You can compare candidates by their stand on various issues, and find biographical information on the candidates. Registration is not necessary unless you want to participate in online discussion.

Blogs, Videos & New Media

Face the Candidates on YouTube: You Choose '08
Compilation of videos featuring the 2008 U.S. presidential election candidates. Browse by candidate and by issues such as health care, energy, and the economy. Also includes videos of user-submitted ideas, opinions, and questions for the candidates

PoliticalBase
Want to find out how you match with the candidates on a variety of issues? This site is an online political forum and a stockpile of election data. It has features ranging from blogs and YouTube videos to campaign finance data displayed on a Google map. It is essentially a structured wiki which means users can edit much of the text but cannot change the underlying database. Users can correlate data and create comparison charts and maps.

techPresident Blog
The Web will have a huge impact on the 2008 presidential race. To respond to the new political trend and keep candidates on their technological toes, the Presidential Democracy Forum started the Tech President blog. The site keeps tabs on campaign sites, postings on YouTube, and how each candidates' friend pool on social-networking sites is growing (or not). TechPresident was started as a new group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign.

PrezVid Blog
The pundits and talking heads have all proclaimed that much of the upcoming presidential election campaign will play out on the Internet—specifically on YouTube. Jeff Jarvis is following the YouTube campaigns on his PrezVid blog, on which he adds his own (text-based) commentary to YouTube clips of the candidates' TV appearances, stump speeches, gaffes, and rallies.

News Media

USA Today Politics
News and analysis about the 2008 presidential election. Includes material about public financing of campaigns, a candidate match game in which you discover which candidate shares your views on selected issues, a poll tracker for head-to-head match-ups, background about candidates, and more.

CNN’s Election Center 2008
CNN has a comprehensive website that covers each candidate, and tracks each candidate’s fundraising and position on the issues. It also tracks the delegate count for each.

C-SPAN
With the headline of “Watch Politics”, this site is a treasure trove of video clips of campaign ads, interviews, stories about the various candidates, and a library of political information.

Vote 2008
PBS Online NewsHour's coverage of the 2008 presidential elections features in-depth interviews with candidates (video, audio, and transcripts), a blog with campaign updates, news and analysis, and candidate profiles. Also includes lesson plans, and links to other PBS programs covering the election. Also provides podcasts and specific newsfeeds (RSS) for states and candidates.

Watchdog & Fact-checking

Factcheck.org
Factcheck is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. It 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. Their goal is “to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding”.

FEC Filings from Prospective 2008 Presidential Campaigns
Official records of Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings for the 2008 presidential election, including Statement of Organization and Statement of Candidacy forms. "This list includes campaigns that have raised or spent $50,000 or more (the threshold for mandatory electronic
filing) from sources or to payees other than the candidate him or herself." Additional forms filed are listed under the candidate's committee, including quarterly reports of receipts and disbursements.

Foreign News & Views

al-Jazeera
This well-designed site features a state by state election map, video clips of U.S. election news, candidate profiles, podcasts, and new media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Vote USA 2008
Coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, from a British perspective. Provides news stories, background about presidential elections, candidate profiles, and analysis of issues that will shape the presidential race, such as the Iraq war, national security, immigration, and health care reform.

View from Abroad
Europeans closely follow the presidential race because the U.S. President plays such an influential role -- for good or bad -- in policies that affect all parts of the world. This was the inspiration behind this site. The site owner says, “I plan to simply ask two questions -- the same two questions -- to as many political leaders and elected officials around the globe as possible”.

Non-Partisan Organizations

Open Secrets.org
This site conducts research on campaign finance issues. You can track who gives and who gets money -- by candidate, by industry, and on the local level. You can check out 527 groups – the tax-exempt organizations that “engage in political activities, usually through soft money contributions. Most 527s on this list are advocacy groups trying to influence federal elections. ... 527s must report their contributors and expenditures" to the government. This site provides current information about the top 50 committees and top contributors and individual donors. Sponsored by the Center for Responsive Politics, the Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry, and a more responsive government.

Project Vote-Smart
Tracks the performance of more than 40,000 office holders and candidates for public office. Resources include voting records, issues information, background information including biographies, campaign finances and performance evaluations made by liberal and conservative special interest groups, and others. A feature of this site is the ability to type in your zip code and get information on all your state and federal representatives, including a biography, address, etc.

Political Party Websites

Democratic Party

Green Party

Libertarian Party

Republican Party

Created by Celia Bouchard, Reference Librarian