Heartening to see election interest

Candidate interest in local races a plus.

It’s here. The 2018 election season is now in full swing. With Nebraska’s final candidate filing deadline last Thursday, and the nation’s first Primary Election on Tuesday this week, brace yourself for non-stop election news, and probably controversy, over the next eight months.
    While that can sound like a prison sentence to some, elections always bring out some interesting events.
    Locally, if you haven’t noticed, we’ve had a big upswing in interest within several of the county and city races. For the first time in many years, we’ve have challenges in the majority of county office races—four of the seven have new candidates— and 2018 is also seeing heightened interest in the Imperial mayor and city council seats.
    It speaks well of the city and county to see the interest new candidates have in serving the public. It’s often a thankless job to serve in an elected position, so I commend those who have stepped up to put their names out there.
    Now it’s our job, yours and mine, to make sure we are informed voters. You’ve seen the candidate names. Talk to them, find out for yourself where they stand on issues of importance to you. Don’t just depend on coffee shop talk—ask them yourselves.
    We also all have the responsibility to get out and vote when the Primary and General Elections arrive (May 15 and Nov. 6), and to make sure our voter registrations are in order.
    There are a lot of issues before us, both in the city of Imperial and county-wide. And, it’s building up to be an interesting mid-year election nationally, too, with a lot of important races for our representatives in Washington. State Sen. Dan Hughes, the state senator for this district, also has a challenger as he seeks a second term in Lincoln.
    It’s great to see the interest from so many candidates this year. We need to match that with a responsibility to be informed.

 

The Imperial Republican

308-882-4453 (Phone)

622 Broadway St

PO Box 727

Imperial, NE 69033