citizen is as citizen does

my pal wizgeneric made a good point recently about being disenfranchised by a lack of information. i have also been thinking it is disturbing how difficult it is to be an informed member of the electorate. have you seen the pa voter web site recently? agh. no wonder voter turnout sucks so bad! i'm a librarian. i'm trained to find information. if it frustrates the hell out of me, think about what sane people go through!

so here is something (courtesy of librarian.net) that is lovely: http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm. if you put in your nine digit zip code (it tells you how to find out what that is), it will give you a list of your local incumbents, challengers, elections, and issues. there's also a list of think tanks, voter registration info, special interest group ratings, ballot measures... lots of good stuff. check it out. and vote!