Need help learning about the candidates in Florida? These guides can help

ORLANDO, Fla. – Hundreds of candidates are running for elected office across Central Florida in August and November. Now is a good time to start thinking about who you want to vote for.

In the Aug. 20 Florida Statewide Primary alone, voters will decide on candidates for:

• U.S. Senate

• U.S. House

• Florida Senate

• Florida House

• County Commission

• School Board Members and many more

[RESULTS 2024: Want to vote in Florida? Here’s how to register and make sure you are eligible]

And while the election is a primary, there will be candidates on the ballot for every voter, even ones who aren’t affiliated with a political party — important races like school board, or even universal primaries open to all candidates.

If you want to make sure you choose a candidate who suits your beliefs and priorities, you may want to do a little research.

Fortunately, there are voting guides out there that can help you with that, both partisan and nonpartisan.

How to learn what races will be on your ballot

Registered voters should be getting their sample ballots in the mail from their county supervisors of elections. These ballots tell you exactly what races you’ll be deciding on based on where you live and your party preference.

If you have not gotten your sample ballot yet, you can find your ballot on your county supervisor of elections website.

Find out how incumbent lawmakers voted

Digital Democracy Project is a nonpartisan group that looks at important bills, asks Floridians what they think of the bills, and then reports on how each lawmaker voted. The idea is to show whether a lawmaker’s vote on an issue lines up with the opinion of the voters that lawmaker represents.

The project began in 2023 with the Florida Legislature. This year they have expanded to track votes on Congressional bills as well.

Anyone can sign up to be a part of the public opinion gathering. Each week Digital Democracy Project asks voters to decide on a number of bills.

Then they post how each area votes on a bill using a handy map. When a vote on a bill comes down, it’s added to each lawmaker’s scorecard.

To sign up to be a voter, head to the Digital Democracy Project website and learn how to download the app.

GovTrack is another site that tracks the votes of lawmakers at the federal level. You can find how senators and representatives vote on particular issues and sign up for alerts when votes come up or new laws are enacted. GovTrack will also help you figure out who your lawmakers are. GovTrack is well known and has been around since 2004.

Follow the money

For many people, who supports a candidate with funds matters. While dark money groups allow donors to mask their donations, there is still a lot of donor information that is out in the open. Candidates and political action committees (PACs) are supposed to report those donations.

For candidates for federal office, the Federal Election Commission keeps a campaign finance database on its website. You can search donations by candidate or PAC, or by individual donor.

Another great resource to look at federal candidate donations is OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics across the political spectrum. You can track donations to candidates and political groups, look at how interest groups are spending money to influence politicians, and has donor information.

At the state level, the Florida Division of Elections keeps a campaign finance database on candidates for state office and political action committees. This is useful because if you get political mailers, you can look up the group listed on the mailer and see who is backing them. You can find the database on the Division of Elections website.

Want to see campaign finance information for county candidates? Head to your county’s supervisor of elections website. They have campaign finance data there.

Nonpartisan voter guides

The League of Women Voters, with the help of an army of volunteers, maintains voter guides for elections in every state, at every level of government. They are posted on the Vote 411 website.

The LWV is a nonpartisan group borne out of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. They’ve maintained Vote 411 since 2006. People who go to the site can look up information on candidates using just their home address, but they can look up candidates in other areas as well.

LWV sends out a questionnaire to all candidates, the same questions depending on the race, and it is up to candidates to fill out the questionnaire and return it. It’s entirely voluntary, so there may not be responses from every candidate.

You can check out Vote411 on the League of Women Voters website.

Now, when you go through your ballot and you see all of the judges up for election, what do you do? Do you know who they are? Do you leave them blank?

The Florida Bar makes understanding what the heck you are voting for a lot easier.

The legal group has a voting guide called “The Vote’s in Your Court,” and it is an easy-to-read guide to understanding what the judges do, what the differences are between all the different courts, and why we vote for judges.

They also post candidate responses to a voluntary survey, like the League of Women Voters does. Not all judges submit these voluntary self-disclosure statements. The ones who do at least give you some information to work with.

While many county and circuit judgeships may have been decided in the August primary, other judges will be on the ballot: these are the merit retention polls for appeals court judges and some Florida Supreme Court justices.

Voters get to decide every few years whether judges in these courts get to retain their seats. If they are voted off their respective benches, new judges are appointed.

Find “The Vote’s in Your Court” guide on the Florida Bar website.

One thing neither the League of Women Voters nor the Florida Bar does is endorse candidates. But other organizations do.

Voting guides and scorecards by interest group

You can also check out the various organizations that operate in Florida. While not all of them do candidate endorsements, some of them offer legislative scorecards. These are ratings of how state lawmakers handle issues these groups care about.

Here’s a list of organizations with legislative scorecards and/or endorsements.

Florida Education Association: This is the state teachers union.

Equality Florida: One of the leading LGBTQ advocacy groups in the state.

National Rifle Association – The leading firearm interest group.

Florida Chamber of Commerce: This is the state’s leading business group.

Sierra Club: One of the top environmental groups in the country.

Americans for Prosperity: A small-government advocacy group with ties to the conservative Charles Koch.

Florida Family Action: This is a faith-based political group.

Heritage Action For America: A conservative group that has a scorecard for federal officials.

AARP: The leading group for seniors has an election guide that includes a legislative voting record.

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