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What does it take to slog through the mess of presidential politics? Friday at BYU, it was a big American-flag blow-up ball and a red and blue bus.
Employees from Project Vote Smart were at Brigham Young University Friday educating students on the ways that they can find the truth about political candidates.
"We give people the facts and let them make up their own minds," said Tony Boehm, who works for Project Vote Smart.
Boehm travels across the country on the bus. The ball is meant to carry messages from the stops to political candidates. Students and voters along the route have been writing messages on it.
Mike Wessler, a spokesman for Project Vote Smart, said the ball will be taken to Washington, D.C., on Election Day so candidates can see the messages. However, Wessler said the logistics of that haven't been worked out.
Boehm said the response at BYU was one of the best he's seen. Some passersby politely nodded and walked by. Others took literature, asked voter-registration questions and watched Vote Smart's film.
Andrew Thompson, a graduate student at BYU, wandered over because he saw the bus and came away with some information.
"I'm trying to be a politically literate voter," Thompson said.
He said he would listen to anyone who had information.
Boehm started the long bus trip in Chicago. He made it through the snow in Colorado to be in Utah, and he'll be in California for Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. The Utah weather is tame compared to Bloomington, Ind. Project organizers are hoping for more than 150 stops before the election in November.
Project Vote Smart has created what it calls a Voter's Self-Defense System, cataloguing key votes in Congress and state legislatures, campaign-finance numbers and public statements made by elected officials and candidates. Facts about people are checked and double checked.
"All our stuff is checked and re-checked. If someone says they went to Harvard, we check that," Boehm said. The database is constantly updated and searchable at vote-smart.org.
"They created it to give voters a resource for accurate and unbiased information," Wessler said.
Project Vote Smart is non-partisan -- Boehm won't even tell people who he's going to vote for. Boehm said the project doesn't interpret any data, only lists it. Organizers leave it open so people can see for themselves.
Boehm said the goal of Project Vote Smart is to make a dent in the political system where money wins elections, and candidates skirt issues and try to out-do each other in debates while avoiding the real questions. Boehm called the debates "issueless."
• Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at
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