#MiddleburyCT #ElectionGuide #MRTC
The publication name, “Town of Middlebury Election Guide” is so misleading it should be a joke. However, betraying the public trust and deceiving voters isn’t funny. And that’s what this publication did: It deceived voters. It did so by purporting to be something it was not.
We pulled it out of our mailboxes to find we had received a “Town of Middlebury Election Guide.” How nice, the Town of Middlebury has issued its first-ever election guide. Look, it even has the town logo printed in it. We’ve seen that logo on official town communications and on the return addresses on the envelopes containing those communications.
Now we’ll learn all about the various candidates and be able to make an informed decision when we vote. Funny, the only candidates mentioned in the “guide” are Republican candidates. Further, the “guide” isn’t even an official “Town of Middlebury” publication. It’s nothing more than a piece of Middlebury Republican Town Committee campaign material. You may have to squint to read it, but text in the box to the left of the printed address says, “Paid for by the Middlebury Republican Town Committee. Nat Kuppuraj, Treasurer. Approved by all the candidates.” Note that all the candidates approved sending out this publication.
So it is not a “Town of Middlebury” publication after all. It’s not an election guide either, unless you are someone who always votes Republican and wants to read only about the Republican candidates. Where are the lists of Democratic and Unaffiliated candidates? Nowhere.
Election guides provide information on all the candidates in an election so that voters are informed and can decide who to vote for. This publication offers pages of letters supporting the Republican candidate for first selectman, write-ups on the Republican candidates for other offices, vague rather than specific claims of what Republicans will do for the voters and instructions on “How to Vote Republican.”
The political rhetoric in this document doesn’t concern us – it’s the pumping up of one’s own candidates and bashing of opposition candidates we see during elections. What concerns us is the pretense that this is an official Town of Middlebury publication and that it is an election guide. It is neither.
