Voice of the Chieftain: Your to-do list for the elections
Published 6:00 am Wednesday, April 19, 2023
As you read this, we’re just about exactly one month away from May 16’s Election Day.
Seems like a lot of time, right? But, from our perspective at the Chieftain, election season is in full swing.
We’ve written before about the importance of these off-year elections: The races on the ballot often can have a huge impact on the community — shaping school boards, or (in the case of Wallowa County and a few other jurisdictions around the state) the board that governs the county’s health care district.
These aren’t elections that generate national media coverage or feature candidates spending millions of dollars. But the people elected in these contests make important decisions about how our local schools and the county’s hospital are run.
So we’ve always puzzled about why these elections don’t draw stronger voter turnout. The May 2021 election had 32.5% turnout in the county — in other words, fewer than a third of the county’s registered voters saw fit to cast a ballot. By contrast, the November 2020 election enjoyed nearly 88% turnout in the county, the third-highest rate in the state.
Obviously, that 2020 election was an important one.
But so is the May 2023 election.
Ballots for this election won’t start getting mailed until April 26. So a date to keep in mind if you’re not registered to vote is April 25, the last day to register. Registration is a breeze: You can do it online, in just a couple of minutes, by going to this site: sos.oregon.gov/voting and clicking on the “Register to Vote” banner.
It might be that during the next month, you feel compelled to fire up your computer or clean out your fountain pen and fire off an election-themed letter to the editor. We love letters to the editor — even those that take the Chieftain to task for some gaffe in a story or editorial (although we might love those letters a little less). But if you want to see your letter in print before the election, you’ll want to start now. That’s because we have only three print editions remaining before the May 16 election, and the space devoted to the opinion pages is limited.
In general, we ask that letters be 400 words or less, refrain from personal attacks and keep profanity to a minimum. If you want to write a longer piece, our “Other Views” columns can run up to 700 words, but a word of warning: Because they’re longer, we have to be pickier about which of those to run. In other words, our preference during election season is that you write a shorter letter. We prefer emailed letters (mail them to editor@wallowa.com), but you can mail them to us or even drop them by the Chieftain’s office, 209 NW First St. in Enterprise, during our business hours.
Again, it’s important to write your letter as early as possible: Because of limited space in the print edition, we might reach a point at which we cannot accommodate any additional letters before Election Day. (Letters received after that point will be posted online, but won’t be in the print edition.)
So, here are your marching orders for the next month: Register. Watch for your ballot in the mailbox. Read up on the candidates and issues. Write a letter to the editor, if you’re so moved.
And vote. That’s the big thing.