MPR News Voter Guides, explained

MPR News presents it’s Voter Help Desk, a place where voters can ask questions, explore MPR News’ election explainer content and research candidates and issues on their ballots.

MPR News is growing its election coverage and making voter resources accessible. These voter guides feature information on candidates running in the 2024 election, the latest political news and explainers about the voting process.

What is the Voter Guide?

The Voter Guide is a series of pages dedicated to candidates and their responses to key questions. This guide was created in partnership with Populist, a non-partisan, third-party voter information source.

How was it made?

All candidates running in a primary race received a unique link to a survey with three questions:

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Why are you running?
What life or professional experiences led you to seek this position?
What are the top issues you’re discussing with voters and why?

We were interested in hearing and sharing what candidates themselves wanted to say so voters could learn and make informed decisions prior to filling out their ballot.

There was a character limit enforced on most of the guides of 500 characters per question, which is about 90 to 120 words. The responses are unedited and had to be completed by a deadline to be accepted.

Why those three questions?

The three questions that candidates were asked were approved by MPR News’ editorial board. In previous years, we have asked candidates questions based on topics. We found this process led to less unique answers since many candidates within the same political party voiced similar or exactly the same topics they were most interested in.

That’s why this year we wanted to give the candidates the opportunity to explain why they would be the best candidate based on their experience, campaign focuses and the issues that mattered to them the most.

What races are included?

MPR News wants to serve their audience across Minnesota with this guide. We decided to get as local as possible for the 2024 primary election.

Races that will be on the primary ballot include the U.S. Senator and U.S. House races. There is one special Minnesota Senate race and several Minnesota House races.

There is only one judicial race with a primary election: District 6. There is also one school board race in Minneapolis.

The guides also include responses from candidates in mayoral, city council, town supervisor and county commissioner races.

We will be creating similar guides for all the general election races.

How many candidates responded?

Out of the more than 400 candidates we reached out to for the primary election, we heard back from more than half. This is the first time MPR News has done voter guides at this scale, so it’s exciting to build a blueprint of how to approach this process for future elections, including the general election in November.

What about the candidates who did not respond?

After attempts to connect with unresponsive candidates, the Voter Help Desk team did extensive research on the candidates’ official websites, their backgrounds and what issues they have brought up in their campaigning. From there, team members tried to find information that corresponded with and answered each question.

MPR News posted those responses as an editorial answer. However, for candidates who had an email listed on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, we embedded an option for our readers to reach out to the candidates directly.

How did we connect with them?

Within the process of applying to the secretary of state’s office, which candidates for the primary elections had to complete by June 4, candidates have the option of submitting an email address. These email addresses are publicly available through the secretary of state’s website, which is how the survey link was sent.

For candidates who didn’t have an email listed, we called the phone number they had listed. Each candidate received a follow-up email after the initial email, and some candidates also received follow-up phone calls.

There were a handful of candidates who either did not have an email or preferred receiving the survey by mail. For those candidates, we mailed them a paper copy of the survey and once they mailed their answers back, we digitized them.

What is Populist?

Populist is a non-partisan, third-party election engagement tool. Populist provided MPR News with the interactive box that shows each candidate, their information and their responses in an easy-to-read interface.

A few candidates now have MPR News-Populist embeds showing on their websites.

MPR News has worked with Populist in the past two elections and legislative sessions in order to show bills and laws that are in process.

Within Populist’s website, readers are able to create an address-specific ballot that can be saved to more easily archive which candidates they are interested in.