[Twirrim]

My wife absolutely loves the mailed ballot approach in Washington (I'm not eligible to vote). Particularly because Washington appears to have votes of some description every quarter.

The information booklet that comes with it has been great for kickstarting investigation into the candidates and their policies, and the various other proposals that are up for the vote (booklet has both for and against arguments from different interest groups) so that she's been able to be a lot more informed as she prepares to vote.

[vanattab]

Am I understanding you correctly? Is the washington state GOVERMENT mailing out ballots with a "pro/con" booklet or are they being sent out by some poltical nonprofit that is just printing off the standard ballot. It would disgust me if it was the election board compiling an "unbiased" pros/cons booklet that is included with every ballot.

[dragonwriter]

I don't know about Washington, but California has:

(1) Candidate statements from candidates (there are requirements for being allowed to submit a statement), and (2) Pro/con statements from the official proponents and registered opponents of ballot measures (identifying the sources for both) as well as financial estimates for ballot measures (for statewide measures, these are prepared by the state Legislative Analysts Office.)

[steven777400]

Yes, it works great. The Secretary of State's office solicits a pro and con opinion from interested groups. At the bottom of the opinion is a laundry-list of groups that co-wrote the statement. That list is often more informative than the contents of the statement itself. The booklet also includes a candidate statement submitted by the candidate for each position.

[Frondo]

Former Oregonian here--they do that too, and it's extremely handy to have all that stuff laid out in one place. Many an afternoon I sat down with my ballot (everything is done by mail there) and the booklet and read up on the issues and voted.

[simantel]

The government mails out the booklet, but all of its contents are submitted by various "interested parties," and are labeled as such.