The election season, for anyone who has not noticed, is now in full swing with local, state and national races less than two months from their Nov. 6 conclusion.

So now seems to be an appropriate time to explain The Mount Airy News’ role in the upcoming elections.

As always, we will cover the elections as objectively, fairly and comprehensively as possible. While focusing primarily on local elections, we will give each candidate as equal coverage as possible.

What we do not do at The Mount Airy News is endorse political candidates. While we will, at times, speak to certain issues that play a major role in an election, we do not believe anyone, even a newspaper, should be telling folks how to vote, nor do we believe a newspaper should run the risk of compromising its objectivity by the appearance of favoring one candidate over another.

We encourage each person to register to vote, and then to take an in-depth look at all the issues, not just some hot-button slogans or half-truths often associated with elections.

We also alter our letters to the editor policy during this period.

First, we do not accept for publication letters to the editor written by a candidate.

Second, we do accept letters regarding the election, even those mentioning or promoting a candidate. However, because of space limitations, we reserve the right to limit how many are published supporting a given candidate. We will do this in a manner which is representative of the number of letters coming in — in other words, if we receive 20 letters supporting one candidate and five supporting his opponent, we won’t run all five for the one and only a percentage of the 20. Instead, we’ll cut both by an equal percentage, and reflect in editor’s notes that additional letters were not run.

Third, no letters regarding the election will be accepted for publication after Thursday, Nov. 1, and none will be published after Sunday, Nov. 4. Letters should be e-mailed to jpeters@heartlandpublications.com, or by using the letter form on our website at mtairynews.com.

As always, all letters should include the letter-writer’s name, town or community of residence, and a telephone number. We will not publish the telephone number, but we do use it to verify the letters’ origin.