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How a guide gets listed

This page is the whole rule set. It is published so you can check the list against it yourself, and tell us when we have it wrong.

What this site is

Montana Voter Guides is a directory. It lists voter guides that Montana organizations publish, with a link to each one. It does not write guides, rate candidates, or take positions on candidates or ballot measures.

The goal is the full landscape, not a short list of favorites. That means the directory includes guides that disagree with each other, and guides whose politics differ from one another.

What gets listed

A guide is listed when all six of these are true.

It helps a Montana voter decide or vote. That can mean candidates, ballot measures, voting records, endorsements, or how to register and cast a ballot.
It covers Montana races or Montana ballot questions.
Anyone can read it for free at a public web address, with no login and no purchase.
The organization that published it is named on the page.
It is current for the election cycle shown at the top of the directory, or it is a standing resource that is kept up to date.
It does not ask voters to act against rights the Montana Constitution guarantees. See rule 04 for what this does and does not cover.

Which section a guide goes in

There are two sections, and one question decides which one a guide lands in: does the guide tell you who to support?

Nonpartisan guides

No. The guide presents candidates, measures, or voting information without endorsing, scoring, or ranking anyone. Newsroom questionnaires, official state resources, and identical-question surveys sit here.

Advocacy scorecards and endorsements

Yes. The guide endorses candidates or scores legislators from a stated point of view. It is listed so you can find it and read it with that in mind.

The section follows what the guide does, not what kind of organization published it. A nonprofit that publishes an endorsement list is in the advocacy section. A union that publishes a plain how-to-vote page would be in the nonpartisan section.

What does not get listed

A campaign's own material about itself. A candidate website or a party slate card is not a voter guide.
Paid advertising, or a page whose main purpose is to raise money.
Pages about elections outside Montana, unless they include a Montana section.
Links that no longer work, or guides from a past cycle that have not been updated. Those come off the list and can come back when they are refreshed.
Anything that does not name who published it.
A guide that asks voters to act against rights the Montana Constitution guarantees. Working to change the constitution through the amendment process it lays out is a different thing, and those guides stay listed.

Apart from that one rule, a guide is never left off because of the positions it takes or the side it is on. Guides that disagree with each other sit next to each other here.

How the list is kept up

Every link is opened and checked before an election, and the date of the last check is shown at the top of the directory. New guides are added as organizations publish them, which means the list grows through the fall.

Each record lists the publisher, what the guide includes, the races or areas it covers, and the format. Those come from the guide itself, in the publisher's own words where possible.

What a listing does not mean

Listing a guide is not an endorsement of the guide, its publisher, or anyone it names. Inclusion does not depend on which side a guide takes. This page is a research guide and does not endorse or oppose any candidate or ballot issue.

Think something is missing or wrong?

Send it over. Every submission is checked against the six rules above, and you get a reply either way if you leave an email address.

Suggest a guide or report a problem

Who runs this

[Replace this paragraph before it goes further.] One short paragraph naming the person or organization behind the site, and how it is funded, goes here. A skeptical reader looks for this before they trust the list, so it should not be left out.