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Election Day - November 2020

This library research guide provides resources related to the November 2020 election and information about voting.

Issues

Be an informed voter and read about local and national issues.  Search the College of San Mateo Library's subscription databases below for more information on the issues being discussed in political campaigns.

Multidisciplinary resource.  Includes peer-reviewed journals, magazines and newspapers. 

Peer-reviewed/academic articles in addition to newspaper, magazine, and trade journals from all subject areas.

In-depth, balanced reports on controversial and current events. 

Opposing Viewpoints In Context (Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints) [Gale]  SMCCD only logo
Pros and cons articles about controversial issues, includes topic overview, primary source documents and statistics.

 

Access Key:

  • SMCCD only logo = Databases with content only for use by students, faculty, and staff of any of the SMCCD colleges
  • CSM only logo = Databases with content only for use by CSM students, faculty, and staff; use OneLogin to access

Fact Checking

Project Vote Smart provides free, unbiased, in-depth information about current officials, candidates, issues, legislation, and voting.

  • Voting Records - Vote Smart digests key legislation in Congress and all 50 states into easy-to-understand summaries, making it easy to compare what your representatives said during the campaign with how they actually voted on the record.
  • Biographical & Contact Information - From their previous professions, education, family life, and organizational memberships to their social media accounts and latest email addresses.
  • Issue Positions (Political Courage Test) - The test measures candidates' willingness to provide voters with their positions on the issues they will most likely face if elected.
  • Public Statements - Vote Smart is constantly collecting speeches and public comments made by the president, governors, and congressional representatives.  Just type in a word, e.g. 'immigration' and all public utterance containing the word 'immigration' will appear.  Compare what they said while campaigning a few years ago to what they are saying now.
  • Campaign Finance - How much money did your representatives raise and from whom? Enter the name of the politician and click on the "Funding" folder
  • Interest Group Ratings - See how over 400 national and 1300 state special interest groups evaluate your representatives.  Despite their bias, special interest group ratings can help indicate where an incumbent has stood on a particular set of issues.
  • VoteEasy - this interactive research tool lets you instantly see which candidates are most like you.

FactCheck.org is a political fact-checking site.  It is a project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.  "We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.  Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding." - from Web site.

PolitiFact is also a political fact-checking site.  It is owned by the Poynter Institue, a nonprofit school for journalists. "Our core principles are independence, transparency, fairness, thorough reporting and clear writing. The reason we publish is to give citizens the information they need to govern themselves in a democracy" - from Web site.

2020 Presidential Race - Open Secrets.org is maintained by Center for Responsive Politics, a research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.