Where? How? WHY?

WHY SHOULD I VOTE??

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Let's state the obvious. If it wasn't true twenty years ago, it's certainly true now: presidential elections affect every single American for generations. Just go down the list - elections for state governor affect every single person in that state for generations, and elections for mayor every person in that city, and on and on.

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"But I don't live in one of those battleground states that tips the balance of the Electoral College!"

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First of all - see state and local elections, above, for which your vote counts exactly as much as any other vote. Some of those contests will be very close. But beyond that, no matter where you live, presidential elections are big enough events that you can bet that lots of very significant local issues are likely to appear on your ballot then.

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"But it's still demoralizing that I can't pick the actual President!"

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Did anyone say you couldn't join a campaign in your area to contact and pressure other voters in those battleground states to vote for your favorite candidate for President?

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"I don't know... it's all so complicated and chaotic and I don't know if voting makes more of a difference, or protesting in the streets, or making phone calls, or boycotting a corporation, or sitting on a neighborhood council..."

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Welcome to civics. You know, it gets a lot more fun when you get the basic facts and the basic skills down - just like conversation gets more fun as your vocabulary gets bigger.

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The truth is, you just name a big issue - be it climate change, the economy, cannabis legalization, or whatever - and everyday people like you have been a deciding factor, somewhere, at some time, in how the government responds to that issue. If there is literally no issue up for a vote where you live, that you care about, in the coming year - which is unlikely - there are all kinds of exciting ways to get involved in campaigns outside of where you live (including state-level campaigns for presidential candidates!). It's just a matter of finding trusted news sources and forming the habit of checking their stories about public-policy issues regularly. And who knows? If your efforts help to move the needle outside of where you live, that could well cause your own mayor, city council, district attorney, etc., to sit up and take notice!

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How do I register/check if I'm registered?

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There are a couple of ways to do this.

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• Google your way to your state's Secretary of State website. You can easily find it by searching your state's name with the exact phrase, "register to vote." One of the first hits will be a state government-run voter registration page (or a page from which you can easily navigate to it). All state sites will ask for info about where you live, but some may go deeper and ask for driver's license or last four of Social Security Number (move below if that makes you nervous). Alternatively...

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• Find that website through Vote411.org or canivote.org. Vote411 is operated by the League of Women Voters, arguably the most respected non-partisan voter-education organization in the country, and canivote.org directs to a page on the website of the National Associations of Secretary of State, a body that bills itself as "the nation's oldest, nonpartisan professional association for public officials."

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• You can also check and register through rockthevote.org or vote.org - and both sites ask for a minimum of info to check, which may be a smart bet if you're not on a secure device. Rock the Vote is a nonprofit formed in the 1990s to encourage more young people to vote, and Vote.org is a nonprofit that came out of the 21st-century push for greater access to absentee ballots. Speaking of which...

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• Consider registering for permanent vote-by-mail. Voting advocates have been saying for some time that paper ballots are impossible to "hack" electronically, and mail-in paper ballots are both convenient and unhackable. Sometimes, an inconvenience of a few hours will make the difference in whether someone votes or not. Save yourself those few hours!

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Where do I vote?

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All of the sites above have a "find your polling place" function that you can consult, separate from checking if you're actually registered. If you are, in fact, registered, but you're "permanent vote-by-mail," you might not automatically see a polling place displayed when you check your registration status - but someone in your ZIP code might still like to know that that's their polling place. Be sure to check everything, and check right before an election! Your area may even be setting up new polling stations for a given election.

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When do I vote?

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Most Secretary of State sites like the above will feature a page of "upcoming elections" - which they'll break down by category. Look for state elections and for city/county/municipal elections, which may be designated as "county-administered" elections. (For example, an election for Los Angeles City Council, which only applies to the City of Los Angeles, will still be administered by the larger County of Los Angeles). The site isidewith.com (described below) also allows you to look up state and national elections by candidate and "district" (it uses "district" as a catch-all term for whatever political entity is holding an election - a congressional district within a state, or an entire state, or the entire nation). And, of course, don't forget the news. The bigger the issue, the earlier news sources will start telling you about the vote that's happening on that issue.

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Whom should I vote for?

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We can't tell you whom to vote for, because this is a nonpartisan site, and we want you to decide for yourselves. Here are some sources of information that are very strong in one or more areas, with warnings about any areas where they're not so strong.

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•  isidewith.com allows you to take a quiz on your own political/economic preferences and then calculates your your "best to worst" presidential candidates from among the candidates running, along with your "best to worst" political party. You can look up a substantial number of national and state-level elections that are scheduled for the year, but you can only take a quiz on which presidential candidate fits your values best, and there's little to no sourcing on most candidates' stated positions. Significantly, you can see how you compare with a big chunk of the candidates' supporters. The site's page about "issues" is simply site-visitor polls and comments, and there's no sourcing or expertise identified for the comments.  If you want to learn more about specific measures being put to a vote...

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• Ballotpedia is a non-partisan site that provides professionally-curated and researched information on candidates across the country, at every level of government, as well as state and local ballot measures. In higher-profile elections, the site provides crucial info about where politicians and ballot campaigns are getting their money from. Generally, it gets into great detail about the policies being voted on, with equal space given to the arguments for and against the measures that actual supporters and opponents have made. In many cases, Ballotpedia will add the specifics of the legislative process that put the measure on the ballot, or even the broader historical context for why and how the issue came up for a vote. The sheer level of detail might seem dry or intimidating to someone new to civics and voting. Speaking of which...

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• If you want to learn more about about the issues generally - not just in the context of a specific election -  ProCon.org is a site devoted to laying out the major positions on major political and economic issues. Further reading is always recommended, but the site might just stand as its own crash course in American political ideologies. Topics are very well-organized into fairly nuanced sub-topics, with multiple "pros and cons" on each sub-topic, and it's very easy to navigate from one place to the next, which is great if you're naturally a browser. Notably, the site was recently acquired by the organization that publishes Encyclopaedia Britannica, the oldest (and probably the most trusted) general-reference encyclopedia in the English language, so quality control should remain high. Remember that what the editors of ProCon.org have posted represents extensive research and fact-checking, while comments can be posted by literally anyone who cares to setup a login with the site.

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In general, it is perfectly reasonable to judge politicians by the company they keep, and policies by the people who promote them. Who's endorsing whom? Who's co-sponsoring whose bills? Whose tweets and posts are getting retweeted and retweeted by whom? Follow the alliances and you'll get a good idea of whom you actually want to vote for (or just campaign for, if they don't make policy where you live. This is especially important if you live in a very Democratic or very Republican area where some local elections are a foregone conclusion).

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How can I avoid being disqualified from voting?

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First off, plan in advance. Unfortunately, there are many people who don't want every eligible voter to vote, so it's important that you have the very latest info on your correct polling place and whether you're registered. We've already mentioned the advantages of permanent vote-by-mail above. That said, there are ways to be prepared for problems if you want to go and cast your ballot in person. Vote.org has its dedicated page on "election protection" here, and there are also phone numbers you can call to report problems. These numbers are especially good to know if you have a friend or relative with limited English who still wants to participate.

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1-866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683)

1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español)

1-888-API-VOTE (Asian multilingual assistance)

1-844-YALLA-US (Arabic)