I have a longer, more in-depth how-to on researching candidates that I wrote in 2022, which you can read here, but what I want to offer here is a shorter version for people who are, say, reading this while standing in a voting booth.

ETA: If you are trying to vote in a Minnesota school board race, someone (tallmomrunning on Tiktok/IG) has put together a guide to all the school board races in the state in 2023. It tells you who’s endorsed by the Education Minnesota affiliate (the teacher’s union) vs who’s endorsed by the MN Parents Alliance (the Moms-for-Liberty affiliate of wannabe book-banners and anti-gay bullies.) In most races, that’s really all you need to know!

1. If you’re picking between a Republican and a Democrat, vote for the Democrat. (Very, very occasionally this will be the wrong answer, but usually in those cases it’s a district that’s so tilted it won’t matter.)
   
2. Visit the candidate websites, if they have them. Google the candidate name + the office they’re seeking to (usually) turn them up. If you don’t find anything that way, try looking on Facebook (many small campaigns set up a page on Facebook.)
   
3. Check for endorsements. Even in a non-partisan race, progressive candidates often have endorsements from labor unions, LGBTQ+ groups, and local Democratic politicians. On the other hand, if you see endorsements from Republicans, or from groups with names that give you bad vibes, trust your gut. You can generally treat it as an endorsement if someone appears with a candidate at an event, says nice things about them publicly during the campaign, or co-hosts a fundraiser.
   
   In my area, there’s a group called the Minnesota Parents’ Alliance (with local affiliates) that’s hair-raisingly conservative and endorses candidates. Every single candidate endorsed by a group like this, you can assume you should not vote for.
   
4. Check for news coverage. Searching for a candidate’s name + controversy (or their name, the office + controversy) might get you helpful hits.
   
5. Check the reddit subforum for your area; there is frequently discussion of local races and redditors do not mince words.
   
6. Ask your friends. Talking to people you know about the upcoming races in your area is a GREAT idea and they might have already done the research, and can just tell you what they found.
   
7. If you have time, check to see if there was a candidate forum (the League of Women Voters sponsors many of these, and posts them on YouTube) that you can watch. (That’s probably not helpful if you’re standing in a voting booth.)
   
8. It is OK to vote based on incomplete information. Also, if there are four school board seats open and you can find only two candidates you like, it’s still worth voting for those two candidates.
   

Popular dog whistles to watch for in school board races: “parental rights” (they mean that in a bad way); “divisive social issues” (they mean that LGBTQ kids should have to stay in the closet and Black kids shouldn’t be allowed to talk about racism); “should be taught how to think, not what to think” (means that schools should not be allowed to say that slavery was bad). If someone’s website makes fun of mask mandates or objects to vaccination requirements, that’s another huge red flag. Candidates who talk a lot about how schools want too much money or aren’t providing a good “return on investment” are usually conservatives trying to redirect attention away from their desire to ban books. Anyone who talks about social-emotional learning (SEL) like it’s a bad thing or uses the term “critical race theory” is an automatic no from me.