Editorial: About our election endorsements for the May primary

Published 9:15 pm Friday, April 22, 2022

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The Bulletin’s Editorial Board did its editorial endorsements differently this primary election.

For instance, we did not individually interview all 15 candidates running as Democrats for governor in the May primary. We did not individually interview all 19 candidates running as Republicans for governor. We made a point in the past of trying to interview every candidate.

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We know voters sometimes could use help in deciding who to vote for and what measures to support. An endorsement is one more piece of information to consider. But our staff is limited.

We felt like we had two choices given the number of candidates this year. One, we could just not endorse anyone if we could not interview all the candidates running for a seat. Or two, we could draw some arbitrary lines and individually interview some, and for all the candidates watch debates, read news reports, review campaign materials and campaign finance information.

Both choices have flaws. We chose the latter. We are telling you because we believe we need to be upfront about it. We have been putting up recordings of our interviews on The Bulletin’s Facebook page, facebook.com/bendbulletin/. We still have a few more to go.

One thing we could have done and should have done is send every candidate a questionnaire with questions tailored to their specific race. That is one way we could have improved what we did.

If you have a suggestion about what you think we should do in the future, please let us know. You can send that to letters@bendbulletin.com.

And please vote in the May election.

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