Reader election poll: Taxes, crime, ethics top your concerns

Questions about taxes, crime, voting rights and government accountability are some of the most important issues you want candidates to address this campaign season.

Over 1,500 readers – subscribers and non-subscribers – responded to our survey earlier this year of what issues are most important to you. We proposed more than a dozen potential campaign issues and asked you to rank them in order of importance to you.

Based on your responses, our reporters and editors formulated questions that we emailed last week to more than 500 candidates appearing on June 28 primary ballots throughout northern Illinois. Positions up for election in 2022 include county boards and county-wide posts, state House and Senate, governor and other state-wide offices and U.S. House and one U.S. Senate seat.

The answers from the candidates who respond to our questionnaire will be shared with you on our websites April 30 and May 1.

Whether at the county, state or federal level, the issue of taxes topped all concerns by far. You want to know how your tax dollars are is being spent and why.

The topic receiving the second-most interest was government fiscal responsibility and ethics. Crime was the third-highest response.

Also topping the list of the most important issues were inflation, roads and bridges infrastructure, gun laws and voting rights. Lower on the list were issues such as health care, transportation, the job market, race relations and social safety net concerns.

We asked the candidates for their thoughts and plans regarding all of these issues.

We asked you a couple non-election questions as well. One question was, what letter grade you would give Gov. JB Pritzker on his performance in his first term in office? Here, you were decidedly on one side or the other, with 26% of respondents giving him an A grade and 27% giving him an F. Pritzker’s other grades were 22% B’s, 11% C’s and 13% D’s.

Readers also weighed in on the COVID-19 pandemic question we posed. We asked you: “What are specific issues candidates should focus on for recovery from the pandemic?” In order, you responded: Vaccines, addressing how to improve education, access to healthcare, mask mandates and improving job safety and security. To prove how all-encompassing the pandemic has been on our society, you also added another 895 concerns of issues not included among possible answers.

Finally, we asked you if you are a likely voter. Here, 99% of you answered with a resounding yes. That’s heartwarming.

Now, we hope all of you do your civic duty on Primary Day on June 28 and on Election Day, Nov. 8.

If you aren’t yet registered to vote, please do so. Here is a great place to start with an online application to register to vote: ova.elections.il.gov

And here is where you can learn how to vote early or by mail: https://elections.il.gov/votingandregistrationsystems/beforeelectionday.aspx. There’s a variety of facts on this state website on all aspects of voting early by mail or in-person, as well as where and how to get information from your local election officials.

We thank all of you who participated in our reader survey to determine what issues are most important to you and we look forward to sharing the candidates’ responses.

See you at the polls.

• Dennis Anderson is VP of News & Content Development for Shaw Local News Network. His email is danderson@shawmedia.com.