At Kentucky Public Radio, we believe in the value of local journalism providing accurate information to our readers and listeners. That’s especially important this election season.
The voter guide, the explainer and the stories you hear over the airwaves are rooted in our mission to provide independent and courageous news that serves the needs and aspirations of our diverse communities.
What’s in it?
The 2024 Voter Guide from Kentucky Public Radio includes the names, party affiliation, district and other official election information for most candidates you’ll see on your ballot.
We chose five well known organizations that advocate for issues and policies across political ideologies, including: Kentucky Right to Life, AFL-CIO, Fairness Campaign, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, and the teacher’s union — Kentucky Educators’ Political Action Committee.
We got endorsements directly from the organizations in an effort to give voters a snapshot of who got support from major political groups.
When you enter your address into the voter guide, it will display the candidates who you will see on your ballot, based on the district you’re in for state elections (and some local elections). People who reside in Louisville will also see the contested Metro Council races and school board races that will appear on their ballot.
How do we personalize the choices to match your ballot?
The short answer? Lots of maps and a little bit of coding from Kentucky Public Radio Reporter Justin Hicks.
We gathered political maps from all over the state for everything from Kentucky statehouse races down to circuit court districts. Some maps, like ones that show which counties and cities have medical cannabis questions, didn’t exist, so we created them.
We ask for your address in order to put you “on the map” across all these various maps and determine your political districts. (We never store your address by the way — we value your privacy). Then, we cross reference your districts against the list of candidates our reporters profiled and deliver those results to your screen.
It’s similar to what your county clerk does when checking your voting precinct to determine which ballot is right for you, but on a statewide scale.
How did we decide what to include?
We committed to reporting on candidates in all contested statewide, and some local, races. That means we are not reporting on the candidates who are not facing a challenger in the election. We made that decision because that’s what we could reasonably accomplish with our resources.
There are a couple of local elections that we dedicated resources to cover: Louisville Metro Council and Jefferson County School Board races.
Reporters at LPM in Louisville, WKMS in Murray, WEKU in Richmond and WKYU in Bowling Green invited candidates to participate in the voter guide process. We built a Google form that candidates could use to give us brief biographical information and tell us about their top political priorities. We reached out to candidates by phone and email.
Reporters then researched, backgrounded and fact-checked that information to write short profiles and priorities on the candidates.
For candidates who did not participate, reporters followed similar methods researching their background and what they have said publicly about their priorities in office, including on their campaign websites, social media and taped interviews.
In some cases, we couldn’t find verifiable information on the candidate, and that is noted in the voter guide.
As with all of our editorial products, we maintain editorial oversight, and responsibility for, all content we publish and air.
How did we build it?
A lot of complicated processes go on underneath each election. In this primary, there are at least five different geographic boundaries that determine which candidates you can vote for: your U.S. House district, Kentucky Senate district, Kentucky House district, Kentucky Supreme Court district and your county – for the purpose of electing a commonwealth’s attorney. Then, if you’re in Louisville, there’s also Metro Council and school board districts.
Underlying this voter guide, is some code that takes your address and compares it to six different maps in a matter of milliseconds. It finds which districts are applicable to you. The code then cross-references your districts with the information our reporters collected on each candidate. And then it displays just the candidates and information you need to know about.
Finally, each candidate has a checkbox under their name. You can click on it to “select” the candidate you want to vote for. Then, when you get to the bottom of the page, you can get a simplified “cheat sheet” to take to your ballot box that shows you just who you want to vote for.
