In previous columns, during other elections, I’ve expressed my dislike of the mail-in ballot system. Like many other county residents, I miss going to my polling place to enter the booth with musty-smelling curtains to cast my vote. I miss seeing the political process in action. Filling out an envelope at home and dropping it in the mail just isn’t the same.
However, I have another reason for not liking mail-in ballots. They make my job as editor—the overseer of the letters to the editor page—much more difficult.
Throughout history, newspapers have had guidelines for letters to the editor during elections. Emotions run high during political campaigns and letters come in fast and furious. Unfortunately there is a limit to the number of letters that can be run. A newspaper must have room for news.
Some papers limit the number of endorsement letters that will be run—or refuse to run candidate endorsements at all. We tried that at the paper in the last election. Because so many letters submitted have so little substance, we asked people to write about issues instead of just endorsing a candidate. We didn’t want pages filled with letters repeating party line mantras: “Vote for my guy, he’ll balance the budget, stop the war, enact tort reform, save social security, stop global warming, restore the economy….”
Clever letter writers were able to intertwine issues and endorsements and managed to get their letters run. Other people just got angry and disengaged.
We decided we wouldn’t do that again. In the future we will run as many of the letters we receive as we possibly can. However, if we get sixteen letters that say basically the same thing, we may choose two or three letters that best represent the others.
Fortunately, the number of letters received has not been a problem in this year’s special election referendum. We have received an incredibly balanced number of “Vote yes” and “Vote no” letters. There have been a lot, but not so many we had to cull any submissions.
The question that the Cook
County News-Herald
struggled with this year is this—do we follow another longtime newspaper tradition of halting publication of candidate endorsements—or referendum arguments—the days or week immediately before Election Day?
The intent of halting letters immediately before an election is to prevent a candidate or parties or groups from publishing allegations or misinformation that can’t be answered or refuted. Of course, savvy politicians are aware of this policy and have sometimes used it against rivals, submitting scathing letters in the week before
the last week.
Also, with the advent of mail ballots, the concept of “immediately before an election” became a fluid term. The county sends out ballots at least two weeks before Election Day. Should a newspaper halt letters when the ballots hit mailboxes? Or should editors assume that voters hold onto their ballots and mail them in just a few days ahead of time? Or, should newspapers consider “immediately before an election” to be the official Election Day marked on the calendar?
You see my editorial dilemma. As you read this issue of the News-Herald,
you will see that we did not institute a ban on election-themed letters when ballots were mailed out. Page A4 is filled with “Vote yes” or “Vote no” letters.
I don’t believe we need to censor our letter writers at all. If we receive letters that are overthe top, we won’t run them. But I think that we can trust News-
Herald
readers to be respectful and responsible.
And realistically, I think the “immediately before an election” has already passed.
If a man isn’t willing to take some
risk for his opinions, either his
opinions are no good or he’s no
good.
Ezra Pound
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