What is SchoolVote?

SchoolVote is an election information service. It helps candidates for student government offices introduce themselves to their classmates, and encourages students to share their opinions about candidates with others. Sharing information about candidates is a great way for everyone to prepare for elections and make better ballot choices.

How does SchoolVote work?

Candidates decide what information gets published on their behalf at the sample.schoolvote.org website. Some candidates may choose to publish only their profile information, but most will stand to benefit by also publishing endorsements. Candidates are given individual accounts that allow them to access and update their information online.

You can submit an endorsement to any candidate you wish. Candidates review endorsements submitted to them, and the endorsements they approve are published. You can see if people you know have published endorsements by browsing lists of endorsement providers. 

The path endorsement information travels from providers to voters is illustrated below:

 

Should I trust an endorsement published at SchoolVote.org? 

What matters most is whether you know and trust the endorsement provider. If so, and if the provider claims to know the candidate well, then you probably should take the provider's opinions into account. If you do not know one or more of the endorsement providers for a given candidate, it would be to your benefit not to base your ballot choice solely on the number of endorsements collected by the candidate. Large endorsement collections sometimes reflect broad support, but just as often they reflect campaign strategies and the efforts of individuals. To help ensure that you are voting for well qualified candidates, pay attention to the quality of endorsements submitted by people you know.

How do I use SchoolVote?

The menus and options provided at this website are designed to be intuitive and should be easy to use without specific instructions. Just try the various options and see what they yield. If you need help, basic instructions are provided on the Home page.

Once you have selected your application (e.g., Student Council) and have pressed the Browse button, your selections are saved (your computer must accept cookies for this feature to work). The next time you view this website information for your application will be displayed automatically.

Our goal is to make SchoolVote as easy to use as possible, and to provide the information you need to make good ballot choices. Do you have suggestions for improving SchoolVote? If so, please share them with us.