The voters that do vote are not sure who or what they are voting for. The politican "platforms" are designed to cause more confusion, promote wedge issues and promote negative ads which just confuse things more.
Is there anyway to actually collect and accurately report on the issues and politicians. I'm totally convinced that if we came up with a nonpartisan simple and direct database of the local and state issues and some sort of newsfeed, it would improve voter education and turnout tremendously. Something like a Voter Wikipedia which is run by devoted volunteers and is community mediated to prevent partisan takeover.
I would try to start something myself, but I don't know how to collect and analyze accurate information. We need some serious local political reporters and policy wonks for starters and then some good journalists who can boil it down to something that the average person can understand and appreciate. Just my two cents.
Any budding journalists out there, this would be an excellent way to get started and you wouldn't run out of material thats for sure.