We are just a few weeks from Election Day, on Tuesday, November 7, and campaigns are beginning to accelerate, from the local level on up the chain. This means that voters are learning more about the candidates for whom they are tasked with casting a vote. It stands to reason that the more information citizens have prior to selecting their candidate, the more informed that selection should be.Here in Livingston, for example, we have one local race this year, for a seat on the school district’s Board of Education. As we have progressed through this election season, the two candidates – Harsh Raju and Fang Gong – have participated in a debate, submitted weekly responses to questions in this newspaper, and been out and about speaking to residents in town. Together, the community, surely, collectively knows more about these two individuals than they did just one month earlier.And yet, many informed voters will not have the opportunity to apply this newly gathered knowledge, because so many of them have sent in their vote-by-mail ballots weeks ago.Let us be clear: we emphatically support voting by mail. It is a secure process that served a crucial purpose during the height of the COVID pandemic, and continues to be a convenient way for citizens to participate in our democracy. We are certain that more individuals vote each year because the “barrier to entry” no longer necessitates going to a polling station during specific hours of a single day and waiting in a line. The more eligible people who take advantage of their right to vote, the better we are as a country, state, and town.However, we strongly believe that the date that citizens receive their vote-by-mail ballots is far too early for them to make the most informed possible decision on all of the candidates. In Livingston, for example, those voting before they watched the League of Women Voters’ Candidates Nights, or read all of the Board of Education candidates’ responses in the Tribune, may have done so without crucial information that could have affected their decisions. Perhaps learning more about them would have emboldened the choice that had already been made, but there is certainly also a chance that learning more about a particular candidate might have swayed some votes.Could people hold onto their ballots until a week or two before election day before sending them in? Of course. The deadline for ...
