It covers candidates and elected officials in six basic areas: background information, issue positions (via the Political Courage Test), voting records, campaign finances, interest group ratings, and speeches and public statements.

Coincident with this move, Vote Smart gave its president Richard Kimball a pay increase that was criticized by some alumni and contributed to a reduction in its Charity Navigator score.

The reason for the closure of the Tucson branch was also related to the university's budget cuts, which eliminated Vote Smart's "rent-free space at a 1,500- square-foot house off the main campus.

[8] Vote Smart has since left the University of Southern California and moved its Political Courage Department to its Montana research center.

[9] In August 2016, Vote Smart announced that it would be selling its 150-acre ranch near Philipsburg, Montana, and relocating its headquarters after the November 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Kimball said the ranch's secluded location, which housed 40 interns, had caused issues: "We have all the problems a university does with the experimental, adventurous, hormonal torrent that is the young.

Love was requited and denied, marriages were created, fights ensued, drinkers crashed, injuries of every sort, hospital trips too numerous to recall, some to sustain life, and distressingly, three deaths.

[11] Vote Smart says that it does not accept contributions from corporations, labor unions, political parties, or other organizations that lobby, support or oppose candidates or issues.

In 2008, Project Vote Smart kicked John McCain off of the organization's board due to his refusal to fill out the Political Courage Test.