Tag Archives: voter guide

2010 Voter Guide updates

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I’ve just completed the guides for all congressional districts that have contested primaries today. The guides for Tennessee Governor, U.S. House of Representatives, state Senate, and Hamilton County races are all available in the left sidebar or via the menu bar at the top of this page.

I did not get a chance to finish documenting the primary contests in the Tennessee House of Representatives. At this point, I wouldn’t finish before the races were decided, so there’s that. It’s a shame, because there are some I wanted to highlight, like District 81, where Rory Bricco and Jim Hardin are vying to see who will take on former House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh in November. There are also a few open seats, like District 18, where Rep. Stacey Campfield is running for the District 7 Senate seat. Three Republicans are running in the race to replace him: Steve Hall, Jonathan Katsiros, and Gary Loe. The winner will face Democrat Sam Alexander in November.

Other than state House, if you don’t see a district or office in the list, it’s because there is not a contested race on August 5. I realize that it’s more thorough to list all candidates, even when there is no opposition. I’ve taken the most practical approach I could muster, given time constraints. Thanks for understanding.

I’m cooking up a whole new approach for presenting this information for the November elections. Stay tuned, and thanks for your continued support.

More election guides

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David Morton has published election guides on the Government & Politics blog at Chattarati. The information therein is similar to what you get here, but the organization and layout are different. The more ways there are to get voters informed and involved, the better. Use whichever guide helps you the most. While I won’t speak for Morton, I have a hunch that he’d be as open as I am to feedback about what’s working and what’s not. Speak your mind.

Announcing 2010 Voter Guides

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Starting Monday, July 12, TennesseeTicket.com will feature voter guides for the upcoming August 5 elections (county general and state/federal primary). Early voting begins July 16, so completing them will be a race against time. Unlike those published by political interest groups, these pages will maintain as neutral a bearing as a human being can muster. The guides will be published separately by district, so that you won’t have to wade through lists of candidates in whom you have no direct interest. (Feel free to read as many as you like, though.)

But here’s the thing. You have to know in which districts you live. The easiest way to find this out would be to look at your voter registration card, if you knew where that was. A pretty handy alternative for Hamilton County residents would be to enter your street address in this form and then view, print, copy, or remember the results—but there is currently a problem with that site. (I’m placing a call to the Election Commission on Monday.) A really complicated way is to go to the county’s GIS mapping site, search for your address, then use the map layers to identify political boundaries. Ugh.

You can find your state and federal districts at VoteSmart. Enter your ZIP code at the top left. If, like mine, your ZIP code covers multiple districts, you can enter your ZIP+4 at the top right of the resulting page, and the results will narrow to just yours. Your congressional district and state legislative districts will be shown, but this won’t help you with city or county districts.

You can always ask me, and I will help. I have plenty of experience assisting others with finding districts and voting precincts.