Web Sites

• Candidates and Elected Officials
  Project Vote Smart provides extensive coverage of political campaigns and elections, including President, Congress, Governor, State Legislature, Ballot Measures, Election Results and other election information sources.

• Common Cause
  Common Cause is a nonprofit, nonpartisan citizen's lobbying organization working for open, honest and accountable government. It is currently very active in promoting campaign finance reform through Project Independence.

• DNet Democracy Network
  A project of the League of Women Voters Education Fund & the Center for Governmental Studies, DNet is a non-partixan, non-profit organization. "Unlike candidate websites and newspaper or television station sites, DNet creates a truly interactive and unfiltered educational area." All candidates on the ballots can enter their own statements on the issues of their choice without any outside editing. Candidates can debate each other on DNet, while voters have the opporunity to ask their questions also. Voters can search for information about candidates and ballots by state or by zip code.

• ElectNet, the State Election Watch
  "A Nonpartisan Reference for Local, State and National Politics." Provides News Updates, an opportunity to "Vent!" your opinion, election results and other Web resources.

• Federal Election Commission (FEC)
  The FEC is a U.S. government agency that administers and enforces the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) - the statute that governs the financing of federal elections. Provides congressional and presidential campaign finance reports and data, campaign finance law resources, elections and voting information, news releases and much more.

• NES National Election Studies
  NES conducts national surveys of the American electorate in order to produce data on voting, public opinion and political participation in national elections. Site provides an NES dataset archive, study & dataset resources, guides to public opinion and electoral behaviour and much more.

• opensecrets.org
  The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan watchdog organization that tracks PAC contributions, individual campaign contributions, and as many other ways as it can identify by which money flows into the political process. It all adds up to a site that is "a national library on money and politics."

• Political Advocacy Groups: Political Parties
  This site provides a list of national "cause lobbyist" organizations. As defined by Alan Rosenthal in his 1993 book The Third House: Lobbyists and Lobbying in the States a "cause lobbyist" advocates for or against a particular cause like environmentalism or feminism instead of on behalf of a corporation. The organizations or groups are arranged by subject categories or in an alphabetical list. Each organization entry has a description and contact information.

• Politics1
  A non-partisan public service that provides an online directory of national and state candidates, political parties, issues & debates, primary calendar & results, news links, a bookstore, political collectibles auctions and more. A link to Awards & Recognitions shows the numerous praises that this site earns.

• Project Vote Smart
  This is the official site of Project Vote Smart, a program of The Center for National Independence in Politics. The site supports The Center's national non-partisan focus of "providing citizens/voters with information about the political system, issues, candidates and elected officials."

• Voters for None of the Above
  "A nonpartisan organization dedicated to enacting Voter Consent laws, giving voters the ballot option to reject all candidates for an office and to call for a new election with new candidates to fill that office."

• WhiteHouse 2000
  Provides information about candidates, campaigns, the election process, the history of the White House, and Votes from 1789-1996. Serious Stuff includes issues & positions, political briefings, news & analysis and more. Fun Stuff includes campaign comics and cartoons, astrological charts for the candidates and more. The site also provides a section for future voters, including politics for the classroom and other resources aimed at youth involvement in politics.

Materials in the UW Libraries

• Campaigns and Elections
  Suzzallo Periodicals
  JK1976 C33
  This bi-monthly journal is an insider's guide to campaign strategies, candidate packaging and marketing of the election process. Articles are primarily by political professionals and some academicians; all are opinionated.