With the 2016 Presidential election just around the corner many have been wrestling with the question of who to vote for? With so much information out there it can be hard to know where to look for information so that you can be an informed voter. I set out to find out how I can be a more informed voter by talking to Brigham Young University political science professor Adam Dynes. Dynes had a lot of great advice on how we can become more informed in time for this years election.
Step 1: Figure out what you believe in In order to make a decision on who to vote for you have to know what you believe in. Most of the time you are voting based on policies and how you think the government should work. Dynes said students need to know why they think policy X will have a positive or negative effect and what evidence there is to support that view. Dynes talked about figuring out what your underlying assumptions are and recognizing your biases as you do research. It is also important to have a general idea of what is going on in the world, so you know the context of candidates policies. "If you think policy X is good, well then you need to think about is it good in these situations, and what are the general situations that we are in now," Dynes said. "You need a general understanding of the news." Step 2: Get informed "It is good to get your news from more than one source," Dynes said. "You can sign up for emails from most large new organizations, New York Times, Politico, Washington Post has a daily email of what is going down in politics... There are also blog type posts put out by political scientist like the Monkey Cage from Washington Post, which is where you get Political Scientist applying their research to the news." It can be hard at times to know what policies will actually work when you have limited knowledge, not all of us have time to dedicate hours to political science research. Luckily, there are sites out there that do some of the work for you. "Many of the issues that people care about concern economics," Dynes said. "Well, there's a great resource online where people can see the opinions of economists on policy issues. It's called the IGM Economic Experts Panel, which consists of regularly updated surveys of economists on a variety of policy and economic issues. It's administered by the business school at the University of Chicago." You can follow this link to use this resource: http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel. This source allows you to compare what you think with experts that have done research in these areas. Step 3: Find candidates that line up with your view "If you think the world works one way, then you need to figure out what politicians are trying to push policies in that direction," Dynes said. He continued on to say that political parties can be helpful because they can do some of the leg work for you. If you generally align with one party then the candidate for that part will usually align with the beliefs that you have. But, sometimes that isn't the case or you just don't align with a party. "In that case, you need to highlight the policies that you find most important and then vote for the candidate that supports those things," Dynes said. Sites such as Project Vote Smart and I Side With can help you identify the candidates that you most agree with. I Side With will help you identify candidates running for the Office of President that you most agree with based on a series of question about policies. Project Vote Smart allows you to enter your zip code and identify local leaders that are running for office along with the stances that they have. Other steps/strategies: It all comes down to how much effort you are willing to put in and how much say you want to have in the future of the United States of America. There is a principle referred to in political science called rational ignorance, which is refraining from acquiring knowledge when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide. "It is costly to become informed, it takes time," Dynes said. "Even if people feel that they have the duty to vote it may not translate into spending the time to really become informed and making sure that their theory of how the world works is accurate and holds up." So, Dynes suggested a few different tactics when the cost of being really informed seems a little too high. Suggestion 1: "It's called retrospective voting, which means that you, as a voter, vote for the politician/party in power if you like how things are going and you vote against them if you don't," Dynes said. "This still requires students to be informed enough about whom the incumbents are." He explained that it still requires students to have some "basic understanding of how different political offices and institutions affect policy outcomes, so you know whom to reward and credit." It also means that voters need to have some knowledge of how things are going, "which often boils down to how the economy is doing." "So even if someone were to make voting decisions in this fashion, they would still need to be minimally informed about politics, but at a level that perusing through the news (either with a hard copy of a newspaper or on its website) on a regular basis should provide," Dynes said. Suggestion 2: Talk to people around you that are well informed and who's political beliefs you line up and ask them the questions you have. They may have insights on who to vote for, especially in your local elections. You can also look to the political party that you align with and look to the leaders of that party and see who they are endorsing. Parties can be a shortcut, but you should still look into the candidates policies. It is important to keep in mind that there is a lot of information out there and it we can not consume it all, but we do our best to stay as informed as possible. In the end it really does come down the price you are willing to pay to stay informed. It is a right to be able to vote in this country but it is also a responsibility to vote. Yesterday I interviewed BYU Student Stephanie Smith and she said, " regardless of who the president is, we are the people, we are the people of America and I think we have more power than we have been led to believe." To learn how you can register to vote, click here.
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AuthorI am Izsie. I feel deeply, which is a curse and a blessing and I love to rant. Archives
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