Not your standard voter guide: Detroit Documenters walks voters through the process
Detroit Documenters coordinator Noah Kincade says the guide helps voters navigate the process from the beginning, like figuring out where they stand on the issues.
Detroit Documenters has released a voter guide to inform Detroit voters on how to vote, get to the election polls and research candidates.
Detroit Documenters coordinator Noah Kincade says the idea for the guide came from Documenter Sonja Stuckey.
“Her idea was basically to produce a voter guide that was different than your standard voter guide instead of telling you who some organization wants to vote for … this voter guide is going to tell people more basically how to vote from the very beginning, like how do you even figure out where to stand on an issue,” he says.
He says the guide is going to take readers to the beginning, like figuring out where they stand on the issues and making sure you have a ride to the voting poll.
“The fantastic thing is that most of this is written by Detroit Documenters,” he says. Detroit Documenters is a program that trains and pays Detroiters to take notes at public meetings.
The guide is broken into different sections such as, “How to vote in a Detroit primary and key dates to know,” or “Get to know the candidates: How to research the people on your ballot.”
Kincade says this guide is different from others – not endorsements of candidates or the issues, but equipping people with the tools to learn more on their own.
“So rather than us do that for you, we’re going to show you how to do it for yourself,” he says.
Kincade says the guide includes a quiz modeled off the “I Side With” quiz, which helps people figure out how to think about values and issues in elections to choose the U.S. president, with a Detroit focus.
The guide has extras like a glossary with election terms and a link to figure out where to find election results.
“A lot of other people out there who don’t vote because they are overwhelmed by the process right there. They don’t even know where to start. They don’t you know, they’ve maybe voted before and they’re like, I didn’t know half the people on there. How am I supposed to choose? This guide is for them.”
Check out the guide here.
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