While I appreciate and commend the informative voting guides you produce each election season, I think your readers would be better served if you moved up the publication dates of the issues by several weeks.
According to your own figures, over 77,000 people in Buncombe County vote early, myself included. So by the time the voter guides come out, over one-third of the county’s voters have already voted, which makes the guides both untimely and irrelevant.
You should publish them before early voting starts, not just before Election Day.
— Paul Huisking
Asheville
Editor’s response: Thank you for your feedback about our voter guides. We prepare them with the hope that our comprehensive coverage will help as many readers as possible make informed choices.
Our goal has been to make our guides available online as close as possible to the start of early voting and to publish the printed guides when the largest number of voters are focused on the election.
We recognize that participation in early voting has increased in recent years. That shift might warrant earlier print coverage in the future. We will consider adjusting our preparation and production schedule in the next election cycle, which won’t take place until 2020.
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