Some rules for election season

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January 23, 2010

by Kelly Hawes Pharos-Tribune Sat Jan 23, 2010, 07:37 PM EST

Voters this year will fill positions all the way from U.S. senator and congressman to township advisory board and school board member.

For most of those offices, candidates will compete first in May for their party’s nomination and then in November for the office itself. The big exception is the nonpartisan school board election where the seats will be filled in May.

For weeks now, we’ve been publishing announcements from candidates expressing their intent to file for the various positions.

With the start of filing last week, election season is now in full swing, and in light of that, it might be appropriate to lay out a few ground rules.

First of all, we encourage candidates to send in announcements telling the voters who they are and why they’re running. There is one requirement. Please send us your announcement either in advance or on the same day you file.

Otherwise, we’ll wind up announcing your candidacy after you’ve already filed, and at that point, it’s a lot less newsworthy.

The announcement, however, is not the only time candidates will have a chance to discuss the issues.

We’ll be writing stories in advance of the election, and we also encourage candidates and their supporters to take advantage of our Public Forum.

There are, of course, a few rules.

First off, keep it brief. The absolute maximum length for a letter to the Public Forum is 400 words, but we always reserve the right to edit letters to eliminate redundancy and in the interest of space.

Secondly, get it in early. The closer we get to the election, the more letters we’re likely to have, and at some point, we’ll run out of time and space.

We’re here to help candidates and their supporters air the issues in the campaign, and we want to give all sides a fair chance to have their say.

Occasionally, you’ll find campaigns sending out letters at the last moment raising troubling allegations about the opponent. We won’t be doing that here.

If you have an issue you want to raise, don’t put it off. We’ll stop accepting letters raising new issues in the final days of the campaign.

The deadline for election letters to be published in advance of the primary will be 5 p.m. April 28. We’ll print the last of them no latter than May 2.

So, by all means, if you have a favorite in the coming election, don’t hesitate to let us know about it.

Our goal is to give everyone a chance to participate in the discussion. That includes both the candidates and their supporters.

The usual rules will apply. Your name will have to appear on the letter, and we’ll need an address and telephone number we can use for verification purposes.

We also limit individual writers to one letter a week, so if you have a letter in today’s edition, we won’t be able to print another one until next Sunday at the earliest.

At the same time, we welcome news releases about the campaigns. If a given candidate is planning a fish fry or some other fund-raiser, we’ll be glad get information about it into the newspaper. If the candidate wants to name a campaign campaign chairman, we’ll be glad to print that information, too.

A huge part of our role as a community newspaper is to support the democratic process. We take that role seriously, and we’ll do our best to keep readers informed of the developments in the campaign.

If you have questions about that or any other aspect of our local news coverage, don’t hesitate to let me know.

• Kelly Hawes is managing editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at 574-732-5155 or kelly.hawes@pharostribune.com.

Have an item?

Letters can be mailed to the Public Forum, Pharos-Tribune, 517 E. Broadway, Logansport IN 46947. The e-mail address is publicforum@pharostribune.com, and the fax number is 574-732-5070.

Candidates can also submit news releases to the same address or fax number. The e-mail address is ptnews@pharostribune.com. Don’t forget to include a telephone number we can call if we have questions.

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Letters of up to 400 words may be submitted to Public Forum, Pharos-Tribune, 517 E. Broadway, Logansport IN 46947. The email address is publicforum@pharostribune.com, and the fax number is 574-732-5070.

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Some rules for election season

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