There is less than a month before Election Day on Tuesday, November 7, and this year’s ballot will feature one contested Livingston race. Two candidates, Fang Gong and Harsh Raju, are vying for one open seat on the Livingston Public Schools Board of Education.
This past week, the League of Women Voters held a candidates night, where the prospective Board members shared their opinions on a variety of issues. A recap of that discussion may be read in this edition of the Tribune, and the full video may be seen on the group’s Facebook page, Livingston League of Women Voters. Additionally, Gong and Raju have been responding to questions in each edition of the Tribune leading up to the election. We encourage readers to follow along with those, as well. The candidates have also made themselves available to residents, so you could ask them questions directly if you would prefer. Not every town has this much information widely available on their local candidates, and it is up to residents to take advantage of these tools.
Some people have cast their early votes by mail, so the process is already underway. But for the majority of residents who have not yet voted, we encourage you to pay attention to the candidates and the issues as we approach voting day, not simply focus on the best looking lawn signs. It is important to remember just how valuable each vote is in a local election; in recent years, less than 100 votes have made the difference in some of these races. So your ballot, or lack thereof, will shape this town moving forward.
That is all the more reason to make sure your votes are informed ones. We understand that people receive some of their information on social media, but please, take what you read there with a grain of salt. Approach what you see with a critical mind and source what you read; the internet can still be the Wild West, and if you do not separate fact from fiction yourself, nobody is going to do it for you.
As we approach the final month of these campaigns, we are sure many residents have already landed on their preferred candidates and wish to share their thoughts on whom they feel will best fill the open seats. Well, now is the time to pass along your opinions to the Tribune.
In the issues prior to Election Day (the last of which is the November 2 edition), we will publish endorsement letters we have received from residents in support of the candidates, as space allows. In these remaining days leading up to the election, we look forward to seeing people advocate for candidates of their choice, explaining why they believe she or he is right for the job. It is important to consider why your chosen candidate is worthy of your vote, and a well-written endorsement letter may do just that for others.
These endorsements should be submitted in the same format as all letters to the editor, with the resident’s name and street at the bottom to let readers know the author is from Livingston. If possible, we also prefer letters to be signed, or have submissions followed up with a quick call to confirm that the person sending the letter is, in fact, the person who wrote it.
We will include a portion of every endorsement letter, but cannot guarantee how much of each submission we will be able to include; we simply do not have the space within our pages to publish every endorsement letter in full. As in past years, we will run the letters as part of an article, excerpting the responses. When excerpting letters, we do our best to capture the most important points made within them, but the shorter the submissions are, the more likely we will be able to include the entire message. So while the same word limit applies as it does to all letters to the editor, 500 words, in this case, it is best to keep submissions short and sweet.
“Sweet” is a key word to note, as well. It is worth mentioning that advocating against a certain candidate or candidates, a letter of “disendorsement,” falls under the same rules as endorsement letters. This year in particular, we only have two local candidates running, so “disendorsing” one serves as a tacit endorsement of the other.
Like all letters, endorsements may be emailed to westessextribune@ gmail.com. They can also be mailed to the Tribune at P.O. Box 65, Livingston, or delivered in person to our office at 495 South Livingston Avenue, though they must be received by our weekly deadline of Monday at 5 p.m. to make the cut.
We look forward to reading and sharing your letters. And for those who have yet to register to vote, there is still time! The deadline to do so in order to participate in the November 7 election is Tuesday, October 17.
