Time to clear the decks

Sample ballots are on their way to being mailed, registration is over and now comes the three-and-a-half weeks until Election Day on Nov. 7.

There are five more editions of The Record-Courier before the election and we're starting to get campaign letters.

There are a few rules that will apply to letters to the editor and advertisements alike.

For instance, the last day to bring up a new issue in a letter to the editor will be Oct. 27. This is so whoever is the topic of the issue will get a chance to rebut.

We welcome letters in support of your candidates, though we encourage you to keep them brief.

Statements that we know or have found to be incorrect will be removed from letters as a matter of course. Also letters longer than 500 words may be redacted for publication. There are a few long letters in today's edition, but it stops now.

We will do our best to run every publishable letter we receive before the election and have already taken extra pages to clear out the letters queue.

We make a point of trying to run letters on the same topic next to one another and will stagger letters of opposing views with the first letter received being the opening salvo.

There are people who write more than others and there's nothing wrong with that. However, if it seems that one side is getting more letters than another, it's because they're writing more.

It's not The Record-Courier's job to protect you from others' opinions.