Editor's Desk: A Word on Our Primary Election Coverage

It's election season, and The Bradenton Times will be providing our usual comprehensive coverage of local races. We begin with profiles of candidates who will be in contested races on the August 23 ballot.

Providing such coverage has become increasingly complicated in recent years as a shift toward vote-by-mail has greatly extended the timeframe in which people cast votes. In our experience, those who vote on Election Day or even during early voting tend not to focus their attention on media coverage until later in the process than those who vote by mail (for more on how and where to vote click here).

In an effort to inform the voting public to the greatest degree possible, we now have rolling election coverage, rather than just one comprehensive Voting Guide. This edition will be the first of several and, as we get closer to the election, we'll take a deeper dive into each race.

We've invited those who are on the August ballot to be guests on The Bradenton Times Podcast and have already begun airing episodes that can be found here(all candidate podcasts will also be included in our Voter Guide edition on August 9). This week, we'll also begin publishing more in-depth analyses of each race in order to help undecided voters get a better understanding of how the candidates compare.

While the candidate profiles are a broader look at the candidates and their backgrounds, the race analyses are opinion pieces in which our analysis reflects the values and priorities of our editorial page, which include sustainable growth with adequate investment in infrastructure, good government practices, and minimal influence of special interests.

Some candidates who will be on the November ballot do not appear in today's guide because they do not have a contested primary in August. Their candidate profiles will be published in a separate edition ahead of that election.

School board races are non-partisan and take place during the August election, with a runoff (if necessary) held in November. Therefore, unlike the county commission, all candidates are profiled ahead of August 23. The City of Bradenton, which is also non-partisan, switched from the same format to a winner-take-all election on the November ballot. As such, all City of Bradenton candidates will be profiled ahead of that election.

Here at TBT, we do our very best to analyze the races for the government bodies that our publication covers, and we are very proud of the depth of coverage we are able to provide, especially as a small, independent publication with very limited resources. I truly believe that it is the most complete and comprehensive coverage provided to our community. If you would like to support those efforts, please consider a voluntary subscription to our paper at $7 monthly, or by making a one-time or recurring donation here.

We appreciate your support.

Mitch Maley

Editor in Chief

The Bradenton Times