What is an endorsement anyway?
This week’s opinion page is a bit more crowded than usual. Beyond our standard editorial and guest opinions, we’ve reserved one of this week’s extra four pages for our annual SA endorsements. Just as national newspapers endorse candidates for federal races and the Houston Chronicle endorses local candidates, we endorse candidates for Student Association elections.
The Thresher as a whole doesn’t endorse candidates — the Editorial Board does. Our editorials and news coverage are separate and written independently. You’ll see that no one reporting on SA races in the news section is a member of the Editorial Board, meaning that our coverage is entirely objective. Our endorsements are opinionated; our reporting isn’t. Similarly, if members of the Editorial Board are writing in the news section about a topic we are also running an editorial on, they recuse themselves from the editorial.
Every year, the Editorial Board sits down with candidates for contested SA executive positions to learn more about their experiences, platforms and goals for the role. We weigh the merits and flaws of each candidate, coming to decisions as a board.
Endorsing a candidate doesn’t mean we believe in their entire platform, nor does declining to endorse a candidate mean we disagree with everything they stand for. In fact, we sometimes use endorsements to point to where we think candidates should go further on their platforms and what we hope to see from them.
This is especially relevant for these elections, given that only one position on the Executive Committee is officially contested. Rather than helping you to choose between two candidates, we hope to provide more information about all candidates and what they will do with their position. Similarly, we write endorsements on ballot measures, including the five constitutional amendments up for a vote this election cycle.
This year and in the past, the Editorial Board includes section editors, managing editors and the editor-in-chief, whose jobs are to know about and inform our campus community.
Our goal is not to force students to agree with us. In an election like this one, with multiple positions uncontested or empty, we share our informed opinions to help you make your decisions. At the end of the day, only one body can decide the vote — the students.
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