2023 BND Voter Guide featuring candidates for local office is available now at bnd.com
Good morning.
The April 4 election is less than three weeks away, so if you haven’t done any research on who’s running in your town or school district, it’s time to get to work.
You can start at bnd.com, where we posted our 2023 Voter Guide on Thursday.
Wait. You didn’t know an election is coming up? Or are you one of the folks who don’t care that much because it’s not like you will be voting for president or governor or U.S. senator? Or were you planning to just sit this one out?
The fact is, your vote is essential because all of these races in southwestern Illinois communities and school districts are critically important. Local governments, and the elected officials who lead them, control millions of dollars in tax money, the direction of public policy, zoning, community planning, public safety, the quality of your kids’ education and much, much more.
These people work for you. You hire them, you fire them, you give them input on what you want your communities and schools to look like. So you have to engage, and most importantly, you have to vote.
Robin Carey-Boyd, president of East St. Louis NAACP Branch #3013, talked about the importance of going to the polls at a recent candidate forum in East St. Louis.
“Let’s use our power of voting…we as a branch are nonpartisan, but we still have power. Think of the power. Think of the power of the vote,” Carey-Boyd said. “ So when we vote, we take back our power to choose, speak up and to stand out with those who support us and for each other.
“Voting is not solely our right, it is our power. Talk is cheap, but voting is free. Take it to the polls. The vote is precious. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have in the democratic society. And we must use it, said John Lewis.”
April 4 would be a great day to take that advice. It’s an important election, and it’s your duty to vote.
Across southwestern Illinois, hundreds of people are running for local office. (That in itself is amazing, that hundreds of our fellow citizens are stepping up to volunteer for public service.)
One way to prepare to vote is to use the BND 2023 Voter Guide, posted at bnd.com. We’ve reached out to about 300 candidates in contested races, asking them to complete a survey about their background and positions on the issues. We are including their answers in the guide.
Many candidates have answered our emails and letters; many haven’t. We plan to update the guide as we hear from more candidates.
You can find the guide at our site by typing this URL - bit.ly/bndguide23 - in the address bar of your web browser.
Once you get into the guide, you will see that it is organized by county. Click on the county link, and you can scroll to the candidates in the community or school district you are interested in.
We plan to include some excerpts from the digital guide in upcoming print editions of the BND. We are working on a schedule now. One caveat: There are too many candidates and too many races to publish all, or even most of them in print. Many of you will likely need the digital version.
If you are a candidate and need more information so you can respond to the questionnaire, please send an email to elections2023@bnd.com asap. If you intend to submit your answers, but you are delaying it until later, your answers may not get here in time to be included in the print edition.
Thank you readers and colleagues
I want to thank the BND journalists who are working on this year’s guide. It is a tremendous amount of tedious, detailed work, but we all know that it is an essential part of what we do: Provide information to help our readers participate in civic life.
A round of applause and tip of the hat to team leader Mike Koziatek, Senior Editor Todd Eschman, and journalist colleagues Lexi Cortes, Jennifer Green, Teri Maddox and Garen Vartanian.
And to our dear readers, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions about the guide, please send them to jcouch@bnd.com or to elections2023@bnd.com.
As always, we appreciate your suggestions and your support of the BND.
Now get out there, do your duty and vote.
-Jeffry Couch, editor and general manager.
This story was originally published March 19, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
