Online Voter Guide Project
Background & Overview of our Collaboration
The League of Women Voters of Delaware and The News Journal newspaper have a proud history of collaboration. If you are a long-term state resident, you may remember voter guides created by LWV and distributed in print by The News Journal in years gone by.
Now that printed voter guides are a thing of the past, LWVDE and Delaware Online/The News Journal are joining forces to produce a common candidate questionnaire that will inform voters on both our online platforms: LWV’s VOTE411.org and DelawareOnline.com.
This collaboration benefits everyone… It's a "win" all around! Delaware candidates have fewer surveys to fill out. Delaware voters get more complete information in each voter guide. And the guide providers split the work of candidate outreach.
Both Delaware Online and the firmly nonpartisan LWV strive to provide Delaware candidates' backgrounds and viewpoints on a variety of issues, in each candidate's own unedited words, to help voters make informed choices. Over 12,000 Delaware voters consulted the VOTE411 candidate information in the 2020 election year, and thousands more used the voter guide on Delaware Online.
Although not officially affiliated with this effort, the Delaware Department of Elections has agreed to distribute a flyer about the program to candidates as they file.
Instructions for Candidates
Candidates will receive an invitation to participate by email. The invitation will be sent to the email address that you provided to the Department of Elections when you filed for office. It will contain a set of questions selected by LWV and news media reporting staff, along with a link to a web page where you can input your responses.
To ensure you receive our correspondence, please add both of these email addresses to the “safe senders” list in your email system: messages [at] thevoterguide.org and vote411de [at] gmail.com
If you did not provide an email address when you filed for office, or there is a different email that you’d like us to use, please send your preferred email to us at vote411de [at] gmail.com. This email you provide to us will not be published, but will only be used to send you your invitation. Later in the process you can decide which, if any, email you’d like to publish in our voter guides for voter or constituent contact.
Expected Schedule
Look for an email invitation soon after the candidate filing and “drop” deadline dates for your election have passed:
| Election: | School Board 5/10/2022 |
Party Primaries 9/13/2022 |
General Election 11/8/2022 |
| Candidate filing deadline: |
Friday March 4, 2022 |
Tuesday July 12, 2022 |
(same – July 12) Write-ins file by 9/30 |
| Candidate drop deadline: |
n/a | Friday July 15, 2022 |
(same – July 15) |
| Expected date of invitation email: |
Saturday March 5, 2022 |
Saturday July 16, 2022 |
By Thursday Sept 15, 2022 |
For a full 2022 Delaware election calendar, refer to https://elections.delaware.gov/calendars.shtml
Questions?
If you have questions or would like further information, please contact us:
Email: vote411de [at] gmail.com
Phone: call the LWVDE office at (302) 571-8948
Please note that the League office is staffed by volunteers a few days a week. Rest assured that your phone message will be received within a few days, and you should hear back from us within a week’s time.
