Project Vote Smart to visit Defiance College

Project Vote Smart is delivering the nation’s first Voter’s Self-Defense System to Defiance in a 45-foot red and blue-striped motor coach.  The interactive roadshow includes computer workstations to demonstrate candidate databases, voter registration, video interviews with visitors, and film footage of historic campaign ads and Vote Smart’s research headquarters in the Montana Rockies.

A demonstration on the motor coach will be held on Monday, Nov. 26, on the Defiance College campus from 2 to 5 p.m. in the parking lot on the south side of Serrick Campus Center.

The bus tour is an interactive learning experience. Visitors watch a short video in a state-of-the-art movie theatre located on the bus. Visitors are then given access to a laptop computer to learn more information about the election and voting process.

Project Vote Smart is a national library of information on 40,000 candidates for public office at all levels of government. They cover candidates in five basic categories: biographical background, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and performance evaluations made by more than 100 special interest groups. They do not lobby, support or oppose any candidate and they do not accept financial support from any organization that does.

The system has taken 16 years, $12 million and the work of more than 6,000 volunteers, staff members and interns at Project Vote Smart to complete.  Project Vote Smart is a non-partisan, non-profit voter education organization, founded by national leaders such as Presidents Carter and Ford, Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, Geraldine Ferraro and Newt Gingrich. It is funded entirely through foundation grants and the individual contributions of 45,000 members.