Lodestone is well-aware of cyber threats and has taken steps to minimize them.

No. Lodestone is a free service.

No. Lodestone is completely non-partisan. Anyone can be a Lodestone Voter, Contributor, Candidate, or Gallery member. It is not funded by any political party. We believe that good government is the result of an informed and involved electorate and developed Lodestone accordingly.

Lodestones were the original compass, helping sailors find their way on the open sea. Likewise, Lodestone Voting helps Voters determine who they should vote for in a reliable manner.

A number of ways. 1) By not voting at all, 2) By only voting for Candidates that you recognize, and skipping the rest, 3) By voting for a Candidate that you think believes like you, but in fact does not.

A Lodestone Sample Ballot is a tool that a Voter can use to more confidently vote in any election for every elected office and ballot measure. It recommends the candidates you would likely vote for, based on your own beliefs, if you had the time to thoroughly research every single candidate.

Contributors can see all Candidates running for any election. They can also sort, filter, and search for any single Candidate. This enables them to be able to easily endorse one Candidate over another and explain their rationale. A majority of like-minded Contributors’ endorsements results in one Candidate over another being recommended to each individual like-minded Voter. The end result is that the recommendations on a Lodestone ballot are unique and perfectly tailored to reflect the beliefs of each individual Voter.

The closer an election comes the more Voters will have had time to endorse, oppose, and post.

Lodestone matches Voters to Contributors, and Contributors to Voters, through the use of the questionnaire. There is no reason to participate in Lodestone if you don’t answer it.

Yes. It is done through your profile tab.

Yes. Other Voters, Contributors, Candidates, and Gallery members cannot connect questionnaire answers to other users.

Just a few minutes. The questions are direct and focused on general political beliefs and principals.

The issues that are important in any given election for any given office, change year to year. But fundamental beliefs that govern how an issue should be addressed don’t change. Contributors who study the issues, the details, the history, and who have personal knowledge about certain Candidates are in a much better position to interpret recommend Candidates, and thereby benefit the Voters that they have similar beliefs to. If a Voter believes that their fundamental beliefs are not being accurately represented, based on the issues and Candidates being recommended, they can choose to become a Contributor, with a simple click, at no charge!

Lodestone doesn’t use answers to the questionnaire to match Voters to Candidates, rather, it uses them to match Voters to Contributors. Contributors in turn have much more detailed knowledge that they are using to endorse any particular Candidate, in any given year, for any given race.

About 20. If more are added you will be notified through Lodestone. If you have suggestions, please feel free to make them via our Contact Us page.

No. Just once. Lodestone is matching Voters to Contributors, not Voters to Candidates, which Is an impossible undertaking, as issues change, Candidates change, and campaigns are bombarded with numerous questionnaires every election cycle… most of which they ignore.

Yes. It is well-established by research that people with similar beliefs make decisions about important issues similarly.

Because they are unnecessary for the purpose of Lodestone. With that said, they are important when a researcher is attempting to discover what a small group of people thinks in order to extrapolate those results against a large group of people in order to predict the large group’s behavior. By contrast, Lodestone is not extrapolating or predicting, rather, it is matching Voters to Contributors, providing Contributors a venue to endorse Candidates, and tabulating and presenting the results in the form of Sample Ballots and actual tracking polling data.

A Lodestone Voter can be anyone of voting age who is registered to vote. It costs nothing to receive free Sample Ballots for any election into the future. In addition, Lodestone Voters can endorse Candidates, and thereby influence other like-minded Voters as they complete their ballots.

Because by becoming a Lodestone Voter you receive free Sample Ballots, year after year, for every election, that are accurately tailored to your beliefs, which saves significant time, and gives you access to knowledge that, without tremendous effort and time, you wouldn’t otherwise have.

It’s free!

Anyone.

No, but you will see their screen names and be able to see all their posts and reasoning regarding their endorsements.

All Candidates running for public office are uploaded into Lodestone when the official list comes out from the Secretary of State.

No. The questionnaire only matches Voters to Contributors.

By encouraging their supporters to become Lodestone Voters.

Of course. This is a great way to jumpstart your campaign, establish a presence rapidly, and give your supporters something valuable to do.

As soon as a Candidates are uploaded into Lodestone, they become visible to Voters, who in turn can then endorse, which in turn results in recommendations being made to other Voters. In today’s generation of media overload and distraction it is one of the most effective means of reaching Voters.

Lodestone provides real-time tracking polls that shows how Candidates are doing against their opponents. The tracking polls show numbers of Voters and Contributors supporting Candidates. The data is not provided on a linear graph right now, rather it is a number, at the moment the tracking polls are being observed.

Prices vary based on the size of the race. As an example, a local city council race is less expensive than a legislative or statewide race. Prices can be viewed in the Lodestone shopping portal.

As soon as the purchase is confirmed at Lodestone the polls will be activated on your page and become viewable.

Yes. However, the polls are purchased on a monthly basis.

No. However, you can cancel so you are only billed once.

Tracking polls are an extremely valuable asset for any campaign that lets them know how they are actually doing versus their opponents and what the election outcome might be. Traditionally, only the largest races, like President, or some hotly contested Gubernatorial or US Senate races can afford them, which can cost thousands of dollars per poll, and are merely extrapolations of expected voter behavior. Gallery members need to know how Candidate that they are supporting are doing, but without reliable tracking polling it is impossible to know. With Lodestone, real-time tracking polling is suddenly affordable and available.