Fact Sheet: Conducting a Candidate Survey

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As more and more people with mental illness register to vote, your organization may wish to keep these new constituents abreast of relevant policy issues. One way to do so is by conducting a candidate survey. The candidate survey is a questionnaire sent to candidates for elected offices asking them for their opinions on mental health issues. The candidates responses to your questions can then be drafted into a report and mailed out to voters with mental illness. Keep the following concerns in mind when preparing a candidate survey:

Legal requirements

The Internal Revenue Service can revoke your organization's nonprofit status if you do not adhere to its regulations on surveying candidates. Your survey must be non-partisan; that is, you must include all candidates for an office - not just the "heavy-hitters." The survey cannot edit candidates' comments; it must report them as given. It also cannot rate candidates, nor can it recommend that people vote for one candidate or against another. In sum, the survey must be neutral.

What candidates will you survey?

Surveying candidates for offices that have policy or budgetary jurisdiction over your issues. Remember that you must contact all of the candidates for each seat, so consider carefully your organization's capacity when deciding how many races to cover.

What issues will you ask about?

Topics to cover could include: low-income housing, the building or closing of psychiatric hospitals, community-based services, Medicaid funding, health insurance parity, funding for children's mental health treatment, prescription drug formularies, etc. Survey questions should be phrased so that there is no indication that one answer is preferable over another. See the sample survey.

Laying out the survey

Consider having your document designed by a graphic designer. A more attractive survey will probably get more responses. Make the survey easy to read, with simple agree/disagree or yes/no answers that the candidates can circle. Also provide space to write comments.

Mailing the survey

To be fair to all candidates, mail out all the surveys at the same time. Include self-addressed, stamped envelopes, and also provide a fax number by which the survey can be returned.

Drafting and publishing the report

List candidates in alphabetical order with their responses to the survey questions. Report verbatim any comments that the candidates wrote. If a candidate did not respond to your survey, it is fair to include their name in alphabetical order and simply state that they did not respond.