HOW WE SEE IT Decision 2010: Reviewing Our Choices

If you haven’t taken advantage of early voting yet, you may still do so during regular business hours on Monday at the county clerk’s office in Fayetteville. Tuesday is Election Day, and your local polling precinct will be open from 7:30 a.m. to7:30 p.m. that day.

It doesn’t matter when you do it. All that matters is that you do it.

Over the past two months, the editorial board of Northwest Arkansas Newspapers has had the chance to do what many voters would like to do - spend time interviewingall the candidates in the contested races most pertinent to our coverage area. After these interviews, the board collectively decided which candidate to recommend in each race. Some choices were easy; others were agonizingly difficult. We then published our choices, along with our rationale for each.

Our endorsements are merely our recommendations, and if people agree with us, that’s great. We hope we stirred some discussion instead, and that voters investigated their options on the ballot by visiting websites, attending a candidates forum, reading news articles, or other such independent research. In other words, we tried to tell people why they should vote for a certain candidate, not to take our word for it.

Whether a reader agrees of not, they should know why we made the recommendations we did.

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The following is a recap of our endorsements. Feel free to use them to supplement what you’ve learned about the candidates and the issues. We’ll see you at the polls.

For Fayetteville City Council: Mark Kinion (Ward 2, Position 1) and Rhonda Adams (Ward 4, Position 1).

For Springdale City Council: Jim Reed (Ward 1, Position 1), Brad Bruns (Ward 3, Position 1) and Bobby Stout (Ward 4, Position 1).

For Lowell mayor: Michael Solomon.

For Washington County Quorum Court: Barbara Fitzpatrick (District 6), Eva Madison (District 8), Jack Norton (District 10) and Mary Ann Spears (District 11).

For Washington County assessor: Lee Ann Kizzar.

For Circuit Judge, Div. 4, Dist. 7: Joanna Taylor

On state constitutional amendments 1, 2 and 3: Yes, yes and yes.

For state House of Representatives, District 87: Earl Hunton.

For state House of Representatives, District 89: Jim House.

For state Supreme Court justice: Karen Baker

For state auditor: Charlie Daniels.

For state treasurer: Martha Shoffner.

For commissioner of state lands: L.J. Bryant.

For Arkansas secretary of state: Pat O’Brien.

For state attorney general: Dustin McDaniel.

For lieutenant governor: Shane Broadway.

For governor: Mike Beebe.

For U.S. Congress, 3rd District: Steve Womack.

For U.S. Senate: John Boozman.