On Sunday, the 45-foot-long bus greeted visitors to the People's Market at Jordan Park as part of the project's mission to educate voters about the issues and positions of elected officials and candidates.

"It allows people to make better choices," said Charles Brady, a South Salt Lake resident, "rather than saying, 'Oh he's a straight-shooting guy,' or 'I like his style,' which is more belief-driven than actually fact."

A trickle of people stopped by in the morning. Project Vote Smart publishes what it describes as voter "self-defense manuals" and maintains an exhaustive database of information about federal and state officials.

That database includes biographical information about officials and candidates, voting records, campaign contribution records, interest-group ratings, public statements and issue positions.

"It's really how deep down the well do you want to go," coordinator Jon Arnold said.

With Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, Project Vote Smart's database showed that two of the top five contributors to the two presidential candidates were identical - Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

Based at a Montana ranch, Project Vote Smart is nonpartisan and funded neither by business nor government. Seventy percent of its $1.5 million annual budget comes from ordinary citizens, whose average donation is between $40 and $50.

Judy Burnett of Salt Lake City said she had been a donor for four or five years. She and her husband, Steve, left with a handful of brochures and DVDs, and determination to ignore the attack ads on television.

"That's why I've never even been a voter," said Steve Burnett, a driver at Geneva Rock. "I didn't know which politician was lying. This is the answer to all of that."

Kyle LaMalfa, who organizes the People's Market and is a management consultant, watched Project Vote Smart's 10-minute introductory video on the bus.

"Even knowing a voting record isn't enough information," LaMalfa said, "because the bills they pass these days have got so many riders and so many special-interest earmarks that who the heck knows what a bill even means."

LaMalfa said it was possible with the site, www.votesmart.org, to pause a political conversation and check out the facts about an issue in a matter of moments.

Even with such a comprehensive Web site, Project Vote Smart has been touring the country since October - arriving from Grand Junction, Colo., and heading to Boise, Idaho - in the hope of connecting with voters.

It will be parked at Hofstra University in New York and Belmont University in Tennessee for two of the three presidential debates. The final destination after 13 months on the road will be Washington, D.C., on Election Day.

While university professors, politicians and reporters all are familiar with its resources, spokeswoman Tallie Spiller said, "The real point of the organization is so that ordinary citizens can use it to make informed decisions."

Spiller said she had heard of people who had spent hours looking through the site's databases. The tour previously stopped in Provo at Brigham Young University in January, which Arnold said was one of the best-received stops so far.

rsiler@sltrib.com