Candidate Endorsement

From time to time, the Knox Community Planning Alliance (“KCPA”) will consider endorsing candidates for elected office. KCPA uses the following endorsement process:

  1. Each electoral cycle, the KCPA Council of Advocates votes if a race merits issuing a KCPA endorsement.
  2. For those races, a candidate screening committee is created, which drafts a questionnaire and sends it to all candidates in the race, with an associated deadline.
  3. Once the deadline is passed, the responses are compiled into a survey form. Names and clearly identifying information are removed from responses. The responses are grouped by each question, so that reviewers rate responses based on the question, not the candidate.
  4. The surveys are securely sent out to the Council of Advocates. Advocates rate each response on a 5-star rating scale.
  5. Survey results are integrated into anonymous candidate response documents. The candidate screening committee reviews the anonymized response document for each candidate, along with the ratings for each candidate. The committee deliberates and then determines if an endorsement will be issued for the candidate.
  6. The candidates are notified of the decision. A public message is released naming any candidates KCPA has decided to endorse.
  7. The responses, deliberations, and votes are kept only to the candidate screening committee.

KCPA Advocates are citizens and organizations who often support candidates – financially, with time, or with other resources. There is no perfect way to eliminate conflict-of-interest. KCPA has a policy that Advocates participating in the process much answer “no” to the following questions in order to participate in the endorsement process:

  • Have you helped, assisted, or talked about a recommended answer to a question with any of the candidates we are surveying in this election cycle, or somebody associated with their campaign? [It’s OK if you have talked about these issues with a candidate or their team before this endorsement process began, but not OK to help them directly craft an answer.]
  • Are you a member of the core team of any of the candidates we are surveying in this election cycle?
  • Do you believe you have a conflict of interest working for or with one of these candidates that would look really bad on the front page of the local newspaper or as the lead story on local television?