Education on candidates, issues needed
The editorial printed in your Saturday edition by the Belleville Ill., News-Democrat hit it right on the nose. Television celebrity Mike Rowe pointing out that voting is a right instead of a duty is exactly correct.
People who fail to educate themselves on the issues and the candidates are the reason some of those candidates offer shallow and misleading statements. It is even the cause of candidates who are themselves shallow. We need some fair way to encourage the voting public to learn the truth about candidates. Perhaps if candidates were not permitted to advertise and debate on national TV people, we would have to learn about them in other ways. Perhaps the candidates should be required to present written and verbal information on their prior voting records, or other proof of where they stand, and voters should read these statements, or at least verify that they read or heard them.
This would not offer perfect evidence that a voter is well-informed. It would not prevent people from saying they understood a candidate or an issue when they did not. But it would at least be a step in the direction of a better-informed voting public.
Keith Kerry
Monongahela