BND Voter Guide with local, state and federal candidates is available now at bnd.com
With the Nov. 8 election just five weeks away, the Belleville News-Democrat has launched its digital Voter Guide at bnd.com.
The 2022 election ballots in southwestern Illinois are packed with key races at all levels of government, and your vote is important. The BND Voter Guide is designed to help inform your voting decisions, in addition to the articles we will post and publish over the next month or so about some of the races and other useful explainers.
The race for Illinois governor highlights the statewide races to be decided in this election. Plus voters will select who will represent them in Congress in redrawn congressional districts in our region and choose one of their U.S. senators.
Dozens of candidates for local offices across the metro-east are on the ballot as well - from county sheriff to members of the county board.
The foundation of our digital Voter Guide is built around questionnaires that we sent to about 140 candidates in contested races so you can learn more about their backgrounds and their positions on the issues. Many candidates have responded; some have yet to respond. We will update the guide as we get additional responses.
You can find the guide at our site by typing this URL - bit.ly/BNDguide - in the address bar of your web browser.
Some of the information in the guide is free to all readers, but other content is available to BND subscribers only. (Go to bnd.com/subscription if you are not a current subscriber.)
Want to look up a particular candidate or race? Click on one of the hyperlinked categories at bitly/BNDguide - Congress, State, Judicial, St. Clair County, Madison County, Clinton County and Monroe County - and scroll down to the information you are interested in.
We will also include excerpts from the digital guide in upcoming print editions of the BND throughout October. We are working on a schedule now.
If you are a candidate reading this article and have not sent in your answers to the questionnaire, please do so asap. If you intend to submit your answers, but you are delaying it until later, your answers may not get here in time to be included in the print edition.
Why are we posting the guide so early?
Why post the guide now? Because voting has already started in Illinois.
The early voting period runs from Sept. 29 to Nov. 7.
On Election Day — Tuesday, Nov. 8 — polls will be open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Also, you can request a mail-in ballot from your county clerk or local election commission.
More than 200 candidates are on the ballot in this election. Our Voter Guide includes a list of all of them - in contested and uncontested races.
We will also include excerpts from the digital guide in print editions of the BND throughout October. We are working on a schedule now.
We are also making plans for coverage of election results.
On the night of Nov. 8 and the following days, we will post live, frequently updated results of all races at bnd.com, as well as follow-up articles that look ahead. Results will also be included in the print edition that week.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions about the guide or the list of candidates, please send an email to to Elections2022@bnd.com. If you have any suggestions or questions about our politics coverage in general, please send them to jcouch@bnd.com.
A special thanks to the journalists working on this year’s voter guide — team leader Mike Koziatek, reporters Lexi Cortes, DeAsia Paige, Teri Maddox, senior editor Todd Eschman, photojournalist Derik Holtmann, audience growth producer Andrew Henderson — and to you, our readers, for your support of the BND.
We couldn’t do it without you.
-Jeffry Couch, editor and general manager.
