About us

How many times, just before elections, have you heard someone ask, "Where can I find information about candidate so-and-so?" Or, "What do you know about this bond issue I hear is on the ballot?" What do you tell them?

If you want to know where the candidates stand on issues of importance to your family -- or how your legislators voted on key issues -- where do you find that information?

You certainly can't get it on TV. You're not likely to find it in newspapers. How about the candidates' literature? Nope. That's carefully crafted by Madison Avenue types to make the candidate look good and the opponent look bad. Besides that, they only mention three or four "safe" proposals and never tell you how they're going to pay for them.

Much has been said about the need for a well-informed electorate. Less has been done about it. To our knowledge, there is no good source of information to inform the average voter about his/her candidates' positions on a wide range of important, sometimes controversial, issues. It requires so much time and research, most folks just don't do it.

It is in response to that frustration, void, and need that this experiment in promoting and increasing the number of informed and actively participating voters has been birthed. We believe this is only one of a number of initiatives that are needed to preserve our individual freedoms and to sustain the viability of our unique, representative republican form of American government, which has become the envy of the world.

To candidates, we pledge fairness. Individually, we have our various partisan leanings, of course. But, for this effort, we take seriously our ethical and journalistic responsibilities to the voters of Virginia, and to you, to be as fair and honest as we can be.

By the same token, we need your cooperation and openness in returning Issues Surveys so we can inform the largest number of voters of your positions on vital issues. Honest, open candidates who really believe in, and have thought through, their positions on a wide range of issues, won't mind telling voters what those positions are. It's your duty to do so to earn their trust and their votes.

To Virginia's voters, we pledge integrity. We believe, if good, ample information is well-presented, voters will make good choices.. We trust the voters. The challenge is to get good information.

Whether you're liberal, conservative, or in-between, we think you'll be able to tell in this publication which is your candidate. (Sometimes candidates make it hard to find out, but we'll try.)

To grassroots activists across Virginia, we ask for your help. The job to be done is greater than we can do without you. Click here for a list of ways you can help.

To skeptics and critics who look for hidden agendas and conspiracies, you'll find none here. As an entity, VirginiaVotes.net is an independent electronic publication. Our funding and staffing is completely a grassroots volunteer effort. No candidate, party, or PAC has any say-so over this effort, nor provides any funding thereto. Our helpers are unpaid volunteers who believe that the civic ignorance, apathy and declining voter participation, especially among our young people, is a threat to America's future. We want to help, if we can.

Feedback. On the blue Nav Bar to the left is a Contact us button. Please give us your comments. Tell us how to make this site more useful to you, so you'll want to tell others about it. Good information is useless if people don't know about it and use it.