Hello Raiders! It’s been quite the year and we’re almost a month away from election day: November 3rd. Regardless of whether or not you’re eligible to vote, it’s important to be informed on the candidates who will be on the ballot. In the last few months, there has been a lot of focus on national politics which is incredibly important, but critical change can also be made locally in our community. Many times, the futures of those who can’t even vote are on the ballot. This can discourage people from trying to make change politically, but there are so many other ways to participate. For example, during COVID-19, phone banking is an outlet to increase voter turnout and campaign for candidates you want to see in office. Petitions and writing letters to your representatives is another great way to put your interests on the ballot. Most importantly, if you can vote, do it! Candidates work on issues that will benefit their next election, and in order to do that, will tackle issues their voters find most important. If you want your politicians to address issues that are important to you, vote! There are dozens of candidates that will be on the ballot this year for Benton county but there are some general trends that will need to be addressed regardless of political standing. With the pandemic and OSU students returning to in person classes, our community has seen a renewed rise in COVID cases, which will be important for our elected officials to grapple with. Benton County’s State Commissioner position for Position 2 and 3 will both be up for election through ranked choice voting since there are three candidates. State representatives from Districts 15, 16 and 23 will be up for re-election as well as state senate District 12. Two out of five of our US representatives will also be up for re-election from Districts 4 (Hoffay, DeFazio and Skarlatos) and 5 (Rix, Courser and Schrader). Important dates: Age to register to vote: 16 Voter Registration (OR): October 13th Absentee or mail-in ballots must be mailed by: October 28th (Oregon is NOT having in person voting this year) *If you’re interested in phone banking, you can contact Laura: her email is [email protected] More information about registering to vote can be found on this document (use your school account): docs.google.com/document/d/1cDhGGZVN6l4TXVsiM72jV9UKGMYLh5U7Y92FvJp2Voo/edit?usp=sharing - Laura Jost If you want to write for the Crescent Crier, we would love to see you at one of our meetings, which are every Wednesday at 1:30pm! To come to a meeting, fill out this form: https://forms.gle/TrQ5PqFcDqeE2yiB9, and we’ll send you a link ASAP. If you would like to submit a single article - or anything else like creative writing, an opinion, an art piece, photo or photo series, or something else entirely - then you can do that using this form: https://forms.gle/WAHSoWJuVwK3q5du6. If you want to contact us for any reason, you can email
[email protected]. Thanks for reading!
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