Voted
We don't compare candidates. We make sure you can actually vote.
TVP's Election Prep toolkit doesn't rank candidates or take positions. It walks you through how registration and voting actually work, and what each office controls — so the choice in front of you makes sense.
How your ballot's levels of government actually work.
City & County
A county commissioner decides road maintenance, jail funding, and the county property tax rate. A city council member decides zoning, local ordinances, and the police and fire budget — closer to daily life than almost anything else on the ballot.
School District
A school board trustee approves the budget and bond measures, hires the superintendent, and sets attendance boundaries — not curriculum. Curriculum standards are set at the state level, by the State Board of Education.
State
A state legislator decides the state budget, school funding formulas, and most criminal law — the layer of government furthest from daily attention, closest to real power.
(The State Board of Education — the body that actually sets curriculum and adopts textbooks — is its own elected office most voter guides skip entirely.)
Adults under 25 are 20–30 percentage points less knowledgeable than older adults on basic questions — like which level of government handles what — a gap that explains roughly half of the turnout gap between young and older voters.
— Stockemer & Rocher, 2016, "Age, political knowledge and electoral turnout"
Help us raise $18,750 for a tool that actually compares candidates.
We're fundraising for a Premium Statewide Civic Center — available in Spanish — a one-stop shop where voters can compare candidates by their positions on the issues, not by party.
Support The FundKnow how to vote before you walk in.
Check Your RegistrationPick-A-Candidate Cornbread
Ingredients
- 2–6 candidates, room temperature
- Their stated positions on the issues
- A dash of endorsements
- A pinch of party affiliation
Instructions
- Compare the candidates.
- Pick the one whose ingredients match your taste.
- Season the cast-iron skillet — never explained
- Know why it has to be cast iron — never explained
- Vote.
Every recipe like this assumes you already know how the kitchen works — how to register, where your polling place is, what a county commissioner actually controls versus a state legislator. That's not a footnote. It's the whole first half of the recipe, and most guides skip straight to step one.
We start one step earlier.
- How to register and confirm you're on the rolls
- What each office actually has power over
- What to expect walking into the ballot box
- Then — and only then — the candidates (coming soon)
Adults under 25 are 20–30 percentage points less likely to know which level of government handles what — a gap that explains roughly half the youth turnout gap. See the research behind this →