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Just the Facts: Do Your Research Before the Election: Home

Introduction

This guide lists resources that'll help with being an informed voter in the 2024 election.

Guiding principles

Apart from specifics, one great way of evaluating claims about politics (or anything) is called the SMELL test. SMELL is short for Source / Motivation / Evidence / Logic / Left Out.

Source: who's telling me this? What special authority do they have, if any?


Motivation: why are they telling me this? Are they really sharing information, or pushing an agenda?


Evidence: simply, what evidence is there? Is this someone's say-so, or are there facts behind it?


Logic: are there logical errors in what I'm hearing?

Logical fallacies: Seven ways to spot a bad argument


Left out: is some important information being excluded to push an agenda?