The 50 Questions Every Voter Should Ask Before Voting: Separate questionnaires for the incumbent government, opposition, and candidate

“Don’t ask a politician to tell you whom to trust. Ask them questions they cannot escape—and then trust yourself enough to read the answers.”

— Adv. Tarun Choudhury

Introduction: A Vote Should Begin With Questions

Every election brings promises. Leaders make speeches, parties release manifestos, social media fills with arguments, and political campaigns try to convince voters that their side is the answer to the country’s problems.

But there is one question that is often missing from the entire election conversation:

What questions should an ordinary voter ask before deciding whom to vote for?

A democracy does not require a voter to agree with every policy of a political party. Nor does it require a voter to blindly reject the party in power simply because it is in power.

The voter has a more important responsibility: to examine the record, understand the alternatives, test the promises, and then make an independent decision.

There is, however, an important distinction that is frequently overlooked.

A government seeking another term should primarily be questioned about its record.

An opposition party should primarily be questioned about its alternative.

An individual candidate should primarily be questioned about his or her credibility, local record, accessibility, and ability to represent the constituency.

Applying the same questionnaire to all three can produce an incomplete picture.

That is why I propose a simple 50-question voter test.

It is not a voting recommendation. It is not a scorecard telling you whom to vote for. It is a framework that helps a citizen ask better questions before casting the vote.

Part I — 20 Questions for the Party in Power

The incumbent has something the opposition does not have: a governing record.

Therefore, the central question should not simply be, “What will you do?”

It should first be:

“What did you do, what did you promise, what remains unfinished, and why?”

A. Promise Versus Performance

1. What were the major promises made in the previous election manifesto?
2. How many of those promises have actually been implemented?
3. Which major promises remain incomplete?
4. For every incomplete promise, what was the reason for the delay?
5. Can the government provide measurable evidence of completed promises rather than relying only on speeches and advertisements?

B. Public Money and Governance

6. How has public expenditure changed during the government’s term?
7. What major projects were completed, and what was their original estimated cost compared with the final cost?
8. Where have significant cost overruns occurred, and why?
9. What independent audit findings should citizens know about?
10. What steps were taken against proven corruption, financial irregularities, or administrative failures?

C. Development and Public Services

11. What measurable improvement has occurred in employment, education, healthcare, and infrastructure?
12. Have government schools and hospitals improved in measurable terms?
13. What has happened to the quality and availability of essential public services?
14. Which major infrastructure promises have been completed?
15. What problems remain unresolved despite being identified several years ago?

D. Accountability

16. Has the government regularly disclosed reliable data about its performance?
17. How has it responded to adverse findings by constitutional or statutory institutions?
18. How accessible has the government been to criticism and public scrutiny?
19. What important decisions of the government deserve greater public explanation?
20. If the government receives another term, what specifically will it do differently from the previous term?

The principle is simple: the incumbent should be asked to defend its record with evidence, not merely repeat its promises.

Part II — 15 Questions for the Opposition

The opposition occupies a different position.

It cannot be evaluated solely on the basis of what the incumbent failed to accomplish. The opposition must explain what it would do instead.

The critical question, therefore, becomes

“If you are asking for power, what is your workable alternative?”

A. The Alternative

21. What are your five most important priorities if you form the government?
22. Which existing policies would you retain?
23. Which policies would you change or discontinue?
24. What evidence supports your proposed alternatives?
25. How much will your major promises cost?

B. Financial and Administrative Feasibility

26. Where will the money for your major promises come from?
27. Will your proposals require higher taxation, greater borrowing, or reallocation of existing expenditure?
28. What is your plan for maintaining fiscal discipline?
29. What is your timetable for implementing your major commitments?
30. Which promises are immediate priorities and which will require several years?

C. Governance and Accountability

31. Who will be responsible for implementing your manifesto?
32. How will citizens measure whether your government is succeeding?
33. Will you publish periodic performance reports?
34. What institutional safeguards will you establish against corruption and abuse of power?
35. If your government fails to deliver a major promise, what mechanism will allow citizens to hold it accountable?

The opposition should not receive an automatic benefit simply because it is challenging the incumbent. It should be examined as a potential government.

Also Read: UK Government Legal Risk, Rule of Law, and Citizens’ Rights: When Does Legal Uncertainty Become Constitutional Danger?

Part III — 15 Questions for the Individual Candidate

There is another mistake voters frequently make: assuming that voting is only about the national or state-level party.

In many elections, the individual representative matters enormously.

A candidate may be elected to Parliament or a state legislature, but the quality of representation depends partly on the person’s conduct, accessibility, understanding of local problems, and willingness to perform the constitutional role of a legislator.

A. Background and Credibility

36. What is the candidate’s publicly declared educational and professional background?
37. What relevant experience does the candidate have?
38. What does the candidate’s publicly available election affidavit disclose about assets and liabilities?
39. Are there declared criminal cases, and what do the available records actually say about them?
40. Has the candidate explained significant controversies or questions surrounding his or her public record?

B. Constituency Representation

41. Does the candidate understand the constituency’s most urgent problems?
42. What are the candidate’s three or five concrete priorities for the constituency?
43. How frequently will the candidate make himself or herself accessible to constituents?
44. What mechanism will the candidate establish for receiving and following up on citizens’ grievances?
45. What measurable commitments can the candidate make to the constituency?

C. The Candidate as a Legislator

46. Does the candidate understand that an elected representative has responsibilities beyond local development?
47. What is the candidate’s approach to examining legislation before supporting it?
48. Will the candidate raise constituency issues in the legislature or Parliament?
49. How does the candidate propose to balance party discipline with the constitutional responsibility to represent constituents?
50. At the end of the term, what evidence should voters use to judge whether the candidate actually represented them effectively?

The Five Questions That Can Cut Through Election Noise

If 50 questions seem too many, every voter can begin with five.

1. What has actually been delivered?
2. What remains unfinished, and why?
3. What is the alternative being offered?
4. Can the promises realistically be financed and implemented?
5. What evidence will allow me to judge performance after the election?

These five questions have one important feature: they can be asked of virtually everyone seeking public office while still allowing the voter to examine the different responsibilities of government, opposition, and candidates.

Evidence Over Emotion

Election campaigns are designed to attract attention. That is their nature.

A responsible voter, however, should separate three things:

• Fact—something supported by reliable evidence;
• Claim—something a political party or candidate says about itself or its opponents;
• Opinion—an interpretation about whether a particular policy or performance is desirable.

The three should not automatically be treated as the same.

If a candidate says, “We created thousands of jobs,” the voter can ask: What is the source? What period is being measured? How is a job defined? Is the figure independently verifiable?

If an opposition party says, “The government has failed,” the voter can ask: Failed according to which measurable indicator?

And if the government says, “We have transformed the constituency,” the voter can ask: What was the situation before, what is it now, and what evidence establishes the change?

The Social Media Test

Today’s voter faces a problem that previous generations did not face at the same scale: an enormous volume of political information arriving every day through social media.

A dramatic video is not necessarily evidence.

A viral post is not necessarily a fact.

A photograph may be genuine but presented without its original context.

A statistic may be accurate but selectively presented.

Before forwarding an important political claim, ask:

• Who originally published it?
• When was it published?
• What is the primary source?
• Does another credible source independently confirm it?
• Has relevant context been omitted?

The Manifesto Test

A manifesto should not be treated merely as a campaign brochure.

A serious voter can read it almost like a contract of political commitments—not because every promise is legally enforceable, but because it provides a benchmark against which political performance can later be examined.

For every major promise, ask four questions:

What? What exactly is being promised?

How? How will it be implemented?

How much? What will it cost?

By when? What is the proposed timeframe?

A promise without a mechanism, financial explanation, or realistic timeframe deserves closer scrutiny.

Also Read: Can a U.S. President Be Prosecuted While in Office? Presidential Immunity Explained

Why the Incumbent and Opposition Cannot Be Judged Identically

This distinction is fundamental.

The incumbent says, in effect, “Judge what we have done.”

The opposition says, “Consider what we propose to do.”

The voter should therefore examine both the record and the alternative.

Neither past performance nor future promises should automatically determine the voter’s decision. They are pieces of evidence for the voter to consider.

Similarly, the individual candidate should not disappear behind the party symbol.

A political party may determine broad policy, while an elected representative remains the person who speaks for a particular constituency in the legislature.

The Constitutional Perspective

The right to vote is not merely a button to press on polling day. It is part of the democratic process through which citizens participate in choosing their representatives.

That participation becomes meaningful when voters have access to information and use their independent judgment.

For that reason, the mature voter should resist two opposite temptations:

Blind loyalty—”My party is always right.”

Blind opposition—”The other side is always wrong.”

Both approaches replace examination with identity.

A healthier democratic approach is

“Show me the record. Explain the alternative. Tell me the cost. Give me the evidence. Then I will decide.”

A Simple Voter Worksheet

Before voting, a citizen can make three columns:

Incumbent	Opposition	Candidate
What was promised?	What is being proposed?	Who is asking for my vote?
What was delivered?	How will it be financed?	What is the candidate’s record?
What remains incomplete?	What is the implementation plan?	How will the candidate represent me?
What evidence supports the claims?	What evidence supports the proposals?	What evidence supports the candidate’s claims?

This small exercise can change the nature of an election conversation.

The Final Question

Ultimately, democracy does not ask the voter to become a political expert.

It asks the voter to become a careful citizen.

You do not need to know every statistic. You do not need to follow every television debate. You do not need to agree with political commentators.

But before casting your vote, you can ask:

What is the record?

What is the alternative?

Who is the candidate?

What is fact and what is merely a claim?

What can realistically be implemented?

And perhaps the most important question of all:

“If I remove the party symbol, the slogan, the social-media campaign, and my own political emotions, what do the facts tell me?”

The answer to that question should belong to the voter—not to the political party, not to the television studio, not to social media, and not to the candidate.

A democracy becomes stronger when citizens do not merely ask, “Who should I vote for?” but first ask, “What should I know before I vote?”

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A Practical Voter Assessment Sheet

A voter does not need to rely on memory, television debates, or social media arguments when making an election decision. One of the simplest methods is to create a one-page assessment sheet and complete it before voting.

This is deliberately not a political scorecard. It does not tell a voter which party or candidate is better, and it does not assign an overall rating. Its purpose is to help the voter distinguish between evidence, promises, unanswered questions, and personal priorities.

How to Use the Sheet

For each important issue, record:

• The claim: What is the government, opposition, or candidate saying?
• The evidence: What reliable source supports or challenges the claim?
• The commitment: What exactly is being promised?
• The cost or mechanism: How is the proposal supposed to work?
• The unanswered question: What information is still missing?
• My priority: How important is this issue to me personally?

My Election Assessment Sheet

Issue	Incumbent: Record/Evidence	Opposition: Proposal/Evidence	Candidate: Record/Commitment	My Priority	Questions Still Unanswered
Employment				High / Medium / Low
Education				High / Medium / Low
Healthcare				High / Medium / Low
Inflation / Cost of Living				High / Medium / Low
Infrastructure				High / Medium / Low
Law and Public Safety				High / Medium / Low
Environment				High / Medium / Low
Taxes / Public Finances				High / Medium / Low
Social Welfare				High / Medium / Low
Local Constituency Issues				High / Medium / Low

The Evidence Check

For every important political claim, the voter can use a simple four-part test:

Question	My Answer
What exactly is being claimed?
Who is making the claim?
What is the original or primary source?
Can the claim be independently verified?	Yes / No / Partly

If a claim cannot be verified, write “unverified” rather than automatically treating it as either true or false.

The Promise Tracker

For an incumbent government, voters can examine previous promises:

Previous Promise	Evidence of Delivery	Status	Source	Explanation for Delay, if Any
		Completed / Partly Completed / Pending / Unclear
		Completed / Partly Completed / Pending / Unclear
		Completed / Partly Completed / Pending / Unclear

For an opposition party or candidate, use the same structure to record new commitments:

New Promise	Proposed Mechanism	Estimated Cost / Funding Explanation	Timeframe	Source

Individual Candidate Checklist

Before voting for a constituency candidate, record the following information from reliable public sources:

Question	Information	Source Checked
Educational and professional background?
Declared assets and liabilities?
Declared criminal cases, if any?
Previous political or public-service experience?
Previous legislative record, if applicable?
Major constituency priorities?
Position on important local issues?
How will constituents contact the representative?

My Own Priorities

Political decisions are ultimately personal decisions. After examining the evidence, each voter can identify the issues that matter most to them.

My Top Priorities	Why This Matters to Me
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

The Five-Minute Final Check Before Voting

Before making the final decision, ask yourself:

1. Have I separated verified facts from political claims?
2. Have I looked at the incumbent’s actual record, rather than only its promises?
3. Have I examined the opposition’s proposals for feasibility, funding, and implementation?
4. Have I considered the individual candidate, rather than only the party symbol?
5. Have I identified my own priorities instead of allowing someone else to tell me what should matter to me?

The purpose of this worksheet is not to calculate a winner. It is to make the voter’s own reasoning more deliberate, transparent, and evidence-based.

The final decision remains with the voter.

Frequently Asked Questions About the 50 Questions Every Voter Should Ask Before Voting

1. What questions should every voter ask before voting in an election?

Every voter should ask what the incumbent government has actually delivered, what remains incomplete, what the opposition proposes to do differently, whether political promises are financially and practically achievable, and what the individual candidate’s record and commitments are. Voters should also distinguish verified facts from political claims and social media narratives.

2. How should voters evaluate the performance of an incumbent government?

Voters can evaluate an incumbent government by comparing its previous election manifesto with its actual performance. Important factors include completed and unfinished promises, public expenditure, infrastructure development, education, healthcare, employment, governance, public services, and explanations for significant delays or incomplete projects.

3. What should voters ask an opposition party before voting?

Voters should ask the opposition party what alternative policies it proposes, how its major promises will be implemented, how much those promises are expected to cost, where the required funds will come from, what its implementation timeline is, and how it intends to remain accountable if elected.

4. How can voters evaluate an election candidate before casting their vote?

Voters should examine the candidate’s publicly declared educational and professional background, election affidavit, assets and liabilities, declared criminal cases where applicable, previous public or political experience, constituency priorities, accessibility, and proposed plans for representing local interests. The candidate’s legislative record should also be examined where relevant.

5. How can voters distinguish political facts from election promises and misinformation?

Voters should identify who made the claim, locate the original or primary source, check the date and context, and determine whether credible independent sources support it. Election promises should be examined separately from verified achievements, while viral social media posts should not automatically be treated as factual evidence.

Key Takeaways: 50 Questions Every Voter Should Ask Before Voting

These key takeaways provide a practical framework for evaluating the incumbent government, opposition, individual candidates, election promises, political claims, and personal priorities before voting.

Evaluate the Incumbent Government by Its Record

• Evaluate the incumbent government by its record, not just its promises—compare the previous manifesto with actual delivery, completed projects, unfinished commitments, and measurable outcomes.

Question the Opposition About Its Alternative

• Question the opposition about its alternative, including proposed policies, implementation plans, funding sources, costs, and realistic timelines.

Evaluate the Individual Election Candidate

• Evaluate the individual election candidate separately from the political party by examining their background, public record, declared assets and liabilities, declared criminal cases where applicable, constituency priorities, and accessibility.

Ask for Evidence, Not Slogans

• Ask for evidence, not slogans. Voters should distinguish between verified facts, political claims, opinions, election promises, and social media narratives.

Test Every Major Election Promise

Test every major election promise with four questions:

Question	What Voters Should Examine
What is being promised?	The exact commitment being made.
How will it be implemented?	The proposed method of implementation.
How much will it cost?	The expected financial cost and funding sources.
By when will it be delivered?	The proposed timeframe for implementation.

Use a Voter Assessment Sheet.

• Use a voter assessment sheet to record the incumbent’s performance, opposition proposals, candidate commitments, supporting evidence, and unanswered questions.

Verify Political Claims Before Accepting Them

• Do not automatically treat an unverified political claim as either true or false. Mark it as “unverified” until reliable evidence is available.

Examine the Candidate’s Constituency Role

• Examine the candidate’s constituency role, not merely the party symbol. A representative’s responsibilities include understanding local problems, raising constituency issues, and remaining accessible to citizens.

Separate Political Emotion From Evidence

• Separate political emotion from evidence. Party loyalty, campaign slogans, viral posts, and dramatic speeches should not replace independent examination of facts.

Identify Your Own Priorities Before Voting

• Identify your own priorities before voting. Employment, education, healthcare, infrastructure, public safety, cost of living, environment, and local development may have different importance for different voters.

Ask Different Questions of the Incumbent, Opposition, and Candidate

Political Role	Primary Question
The Incumbent	Must explain its past performance.
The Opposition	Must explain its proposed alternative.
The Candidate	Must explain their capacity and commitment to represent the constituency.

• The incumbent, opposition, and candidate require different questions. The incumbent must explain its past performance; the opposition must explain its proposed alternative; and the candidate must explain their capacity and commitment to represent the constituency.

Understand the Purpose of a Voter Scorecard

• The purpose of a voter scorecard is not to tell citizens whom to vote for. Its purpose is to help voters make a more informed, evidence-based, and independent decision.

Summary

Before voting, compare the government’s record, examine the opposition’s alternative, investigate the candidate, verify political claims, and use evidence—not slogans or emotion—to make your own informed electoral decision.

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