How to be a more effective voter

A few basic ideas about how to be a more effective voter:

1.  Pay more attention to local elections.   Local elections often have more effect on our lives than the big national elections.  Local elections create an environment that in the long term effects national elections.  Fewer people vote in local elections so every vote has a greater impact.

2.  Pay more attention to primaries.  Again, fewer people vote in the primaries so each vote has more impact.  I favor the democratic party, but if I lived in a district that was gerrymandered so that a Republican was sure to be elected, getting involved in the Republican primary could help get a better Republican in office.

3.  Take advantage of division of labor in selecting good candidates.  There are lots of candidates and issues and it is very time consuming to understand them all. I know a few people who I respect and trust who pay close attention to local elections, primaries and ballot initiatives.  There is no reason for me to duplicate their research.  I just email them and ask who I should vote for.

4.  Use email and facebook to spread the word.  I have friends who care about politics but who don't vote in primaries and local elections because they don't know who to vote for or because the election is not publicized.   I send out emails and post on facebook about these elections.  I post the candidates and positions suggested by my expert friends.

This does not take much time and is pretty effective.  The whole process of collecting info from my expert friends and then emailing the info to everyone else only takes a few hours a year.  My guess is that I motivate 10 to 20 people to vote in elections that they would not otherwise have paid attention to or known how to vote in.