poll vault

Internet traffic must have been busy tonight at OnTheIssues.org. I repeatedly got error messages when I tried to load the page during prime time. I finally got through but not until late in the evening. My son told me about the site as he and I were talking about next week's election and about his AP Government class, which I mentioned here two weeks ago.

Because I don't know how I'm going to vote, my son suggested that I answer a brief questionnaire to see which presidential candidate best matched my views. Since I couldn't connect to OnTheIssues, I sought out some similar sites. A Sacramento Bee article listed several.

The various quiz results weren't quite as helpful as I had hoped. USA Today's Candidate Match Game was perhaps too simple. With only eleven questions, it omitted some issues that are important to me. It told me that my best match was a candidate who has already dropped out. Glassbooth had me assign points to issues, which was an extra step I didn't want. As a result, it pointed me to a long-shot candidate. Once I was able to get to OnTheIssues, it was hard to find the link to their survey. The Sacramento Bee article said their quiz was actually hosted on SpeakOut.com, so I just went straight there. My match scores there were pretty low. I think it's because my views don't line up neatly with either political party. I would be considered to be liberal on some issues yet conservative on others. Too bad I can't vote in both primaries.