When it comes to transparency and voter accessibility, Mike Vizzard outpaces his challenger—though not by much. Vizzard has at least made one public appearance in a long-form interview that gives insight into his background, experience, and township initiatives. While it’s not election-specific messaging and lacks supporting digital infrastructure like a website, it’s still more than most candidates in low-profile races tend to offer.

Robert Welch, on the other hand, is virtually invisible to the public. Despite receiving the county party endorsement, there is no evidence of a campaign presence, platform, or engagement efforts. Right now, voters are choosing between someone we at least know a little about, and someone we can’t find any information on—even though he has the party’s backing.

A brief review of our methods: We send snail mail and emails to the candidates via addresses they provided to the county clerk. We regularly attend political meetings and campaign events.We do google searches of all candidates. We have suggested more cooperation from the county at county commissioner meetings multiple times. We have written to all state legislators about changing state election law to have counties do this type of service themselves.