Voter Guide Best Practices

Scroll down for tips and strategies for maximizing voter engagement and getting the most from your voter guide.

From the Busy Pro-Life Voter's Viewpoint

501-C4/PAC Endorsements vs 501-C3 Comparisons

C4/PAC Endorsements are way better than C3 comparison pieces.

  • People are busy, so voter guides should NOT be busy.
  • Time is limited so the voter guide should be easy to obtain, and easy to understand and use.
  • “Please bottom-line it for me.” — For the most part, pro-life voters trust their NRLC state affiliate organization and its endorsements.
  • Give the voters what they need and want: a “bumper sticker answer” type voter guide, in which their state affiliate has done the research and heavy lifting, so they don’t have to.
  • Many busy pro-life voters do not want to spend half an hour or more poring over details on 501-C3 comparison pieces.
  • The easier we make it for pro-life people to vote pro-life, the better our election results will be.

Filtered Display Results

Filtered display results (only showing what's on the voter's ballot) are way better than busy, unfiltered, hard-to-use full lists.

  • Busy pro-life voters do not want to manually scan and filter their own candidates out of a full list. They just want their own customized-to-them list.

Consistency is Key

Consistency from election cycle to election cycle — always providing the same lookup service in the same location (URL/domain) — is a key best practice for voter engagement.

Benefits of minimal, streamlined lookup form & results display

a.k.a. “5ive Reasons to avoid menus & links shown around your voter guide lookup form and results”

  • The lookup form (at your publicized URL) needs to have ONE PURPOSE and only one purpose: to get each voter to input the necessary details for doing a geocoding lookup (their residential address that is on their voter registration card).
  • The lookup form (at your publicized URL) should offer NO menu choices or link buttons or unnecessary distractions, in order to reduce any chances that the voter will get confused or distracted and not complete their lookup.
  • For the same reasons, we recommend the displayed voter guide results should focus on the candidate info, and show the bare minimum of information.
  • Our platform is designed to show any ballot measures first, then candidate info, then repeat the ballot measures again, then finally any other info that might be important.
  • Clean and simple is appealing, as it instantly conveys “this is easy and won't take long,” which translates to better completion rates.

💡 Pro Tips

  • Keep your lookup form and voter guide simple and focused. Every additional option or distraction reduces completion rates.
  • Champion tier: Do embed your self-hosted lookup form in your main websites (iframe should work great for this), surrounded by menus and links -- just don't publicize that link. Instead, publicize where your self-hosted package is in a folder all to itself, without added menus or links.

Save Money with Smart Caching

Save money by not paying for geocoding lookups for repeat submissions.

  • Our platform caches all the lookups that happen, and for each and every lookup submission, we instantly (in the background) check to see if the address has been looked up before.
  • If the address has been looked up within the last 90 days, we use the cached results instead of performing a new geocoding lookup.
  • This is especially helpful when:
    • Multiple people in the same household use your guide
    • Voters share your guide link with friends and neighbors
    • People check their guide multiple times as election day approaches

Additional Best Practices

1. Promote Early and Often

Start promoting your voter guide lookup tool at least 6-8 weeks before the election. This gives voters time to research candidates and share with others.

2. Use Multiple Channels

  • Email campaigns to your supporter list
  • Social media posts with direct links
  • Website banners and prominent placement
  • Print materials with QR codes

3. Track Your Success

Use our built-in analytics to monitor:

  • Total lookups performed
  • Most searched districts
  • Peak usage times
  • Geographic distribution of users

4. Keep Information Current

Update your voter guide immediately when:

  • Candidates drop out or change positions
  • New endorsements are made
  • Important ballot measures are added

Ready to Get Started?

Put these best practices into action with your voter guide. Remember: the easier you make it for pro-life voters to find and use your guide, the more impact you'll have on election day.

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