Project Vote Smart Excludes Independent and Minor Party Candidates

After contacting Project Vote Smart on multiple occasions, by phone and by email, it appears that they have put in place a system that disregards Independent and Minor Party candidates till the primaries are complete. This would appear at first to be understandable, expect in cases such as we have in Louisiana's 7th District.

There will be no primary races for Louisiana's 7th Congressional District, because none of the major parties have more than one candidate. November 4, 2008 will be the first and final opportunity to pick your US Representative, Peter Vidrine, Charles Boustany or Don Cravins, Jr.

Project Vote Smart has the noble purpose of letting the voters know as much as possible of the candidates historical voting record, along with the results of their Political Courage Test offered to all candidates. Currently, if voters go to the Project Vote Smart web site, they will be misled into believing that Charles Boustany and Don Cravins are the only candidates in the race. Our campaign has contacted the organization on two separate occasions to correct this matter, but the incorrect information remains. Numerous emails have been unanswered. During the last call, we were told that Peter Vidrine's candidacy was not listed because he would not be in the major party primaries, but neither will Charles Boustany or Don Cravins, Jr. They understood this, but will not correct the candidates list.

We still believe that Project Vote Smart is a well intentioned and useful web site to educate the votes, but this gaping hole in their candidate listing leaves a lot to be desired. Eventually, Peter along with other independent candidates will likely be listed in Project Vote Smart, but the disservice by listing other candidates for months before including the independents leaves a lot to be desired. Should you wish to express your dissatisfaction with Project Vote Smart ignoring independent and minor party candidates, please email them at comments@votesmart.organd let them know what you think.

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

Thomas Jefferson

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

Thomas Jefferson

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free"

Ronald Reagan

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

Woodrow Wilson

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