Residents of Eden Prairie and southern Minnetonka will soon receive the 2024 Voter Guide from Eden Prairie Local News (EPLN) in their mailboxes. The 24-page guide includes coverage of candidates in races such as Eden Prairie’s city council and school board, Minnesota House legislative races, U.S. House and Senate, and Hennepin County commissioner seats.
The 2024 Voter Guide is scheduled to arrive in mailboxes on Oct. 1, 2, or 3.
Mark Weber, project lead for the Voter Guide and an EPLN board member, said the 2024 edition is “an encore from the guide that EPLN created in 2022, which we anticipate continuing to produce in the fall of even-numbered years.”
For 2024, EPLN sent questionnaires to all 20 local candidates up to the 3rd Congressional District and achieved 100% participation. The Voter Guide includes candidate backgrounds and their responses to EPLN’s questions, with candidates for specific offices displayed side by side, as well as a job description of the office they’re running for. It also includes QR codes directing readers back to EPLN’s online election coverage for additional responses from 18 of the candidates. (Center your mobile phone’s camera directly over a QR code to access additional online coverage of that candidate’s responses.)
EPLN’s online election coverage also includes candidate forums, political events, letters to the editor, and more, and will continue through the Nov. 5 election. EPLN, a hyperlocal, nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom, does not provide political endorsements.
“In this highly partisan, divisive moment in our politics, residents tell us they find our approach refreshing,” said Steve Schewe, who became EPLN’s publisher and CEO in 2022. “In a May (2024) survey, 92% of respondents told us EPLN is nonpartisan all or most of the time. We will continue to cover elections as a public service.”In 2022, Schewe said, “We sent a guide to 26,000 households in the Eden Prairie ZIP codes because we believe in universal access to this information. At the request of one of the campaigns, this year we added 11,000 households in southern Minnetonka to serve the needs of House District 49A, which straddles the Eden Prairie/Minnetonka city boundaries.”
Schewe attributes his involvement with EPLN to his desire for local political coverage. After the closure of the previously existing print newspaper, he said, “In the fall of 2020, I began to volunteer for EPLN because I missed having objective coverage of our local races for school board and city council. What I found then was paid political advertising or candidate websites, which tended to only tell one side of the story. Some candidates for local offices weren’t even listed in other news sources.”
The 2024 Voter Guide was largely assembled by EPLN’s small paid staff and volunteers. Printing and mailing costs were covered by advertisers, the Eden Prairie Community Foundation, and the local chapter of the League of Women Voters.
“We encourage you to patronize the businesses that helped us bring this guide to you,” Schewe said. “We couldn’t have done it without them. You can also support EPLN directly by signing up for a free subscription at eplocalnews.org/subscribe, or by making a tax-deductible donation on our website or through the mail to P.O. Box 44242, Eden Prairie, MN 55344.”
Early voting for the 2024 general election began in Minnesota on Sept. 20. More information is available on the elections section of the City of Eden Prairie’s website.
For more information on EPLN or the 2024 Voter Guide, contact Publisher/CEO Steve Schewe at steve.schewe@eplocalnews.org.
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