Feedback For Groups Doing Surveys

I understand and appreciate the effort outside groups make to help get candidates on record with surveys and questionaires and such. However, not all questionaires are equal and I wanted to give some feedback.


1. Give about a month's time to answer the thing.

Candidates in New Hampshire for the most part are not professionals, they've got other things going on in their lives besides running for office.

2. Say who you are and where you get your money.

I can't speak for other candidates, but I really don't care when some random group from out of state sends me something but doesn't say who's behind their efforts.

3. Say why I should care about you.

It will take more than "the voters have a right to know where you stand." I don't need a middle man for that from some group that nobody's ever heard of, I talk to hundreds of voters in Merrimack every week. Why is your group relevant towards educating voters?

4. Embrace multiple choice answers.

If it were up to me, not only would we have more than simple binary decision making for voting, we'd have it for legislative voting as well.

It's inaccurate to compare strong opinions and weak opinions as the same thing. In real life we don't do that, politics should have it happen either.

5. Embrace giving the candidate the chance to speak freely.

Even when it comes to a legislator's roll call vote, there's still debate beforehand that is more nuanced than just "yes" or "no". In addition to more than two options, give a section to let the candidate say why they think that way.

6. Don't use loaded questions

Non-partisan groups are one thing, they're there to educate. But why should I cooperate with a group that is trying to either make me agree with what they're saying or paint me as a villain? I don't like the left wing loaded questions either, but until there's a bi-partisan effort to remove all those questions, i'm tolerant of them.

7. Accept the answers by E-mail or have the entire thing be online.

In 2006 there was a group that said I needed to mail them back the answers and provide my own stamp. If you can't use a computer, your group has no relevance in the 21st Century, and therefore is unimportant.

8. Work with other groups if you can.

There must be at least a dozen lobbyist groups on each issue in New Hampshire it seems. I don't get why they can't just band together and send me one questionaire rather than sending me a hundred different ones.