The kids are back in school, we’re well into the football
season, there’s a comfortable nip in the night air, the Olympics
and World Series are just around the corner, and we’re less than
eight weeks away from the 2000 general election.

Traditionally, the general election process really isn’t
supposed to get started until after Labor Day, but it seems like
presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush have been at it
forever.

Although, as usual, the presidential and congressional races are
vitally important to Colorado, what voters here decide on the five
possible constitutional amendments probably will have more impact
on the lives of Douglas County residents than anything that happens
nationally, including which party wins the White House or
Congress.

This means in less than two months, it is incumbent on every
responsible voter to know enough about these important issues to be
comfortable with the decision made at the polls Nov. 7.

To review briefly, on Amendment 20, voters will choose whether
they favor the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Amendment
21 deals with a broad statewide tax cut. Amendment 22, which is
being challenged, deals with background checks at gun shows and
Amendment 23 will ask voters about a school-finance initiative.

But Amendment 24 probably will generate the most interest and be
the most divisive of all of the proposed amendment issues. Voters
will be faced with a controversial growth-control proposal that
already has created a serious statewide schism.

At the moment, some pollsters have reported that Colorado voters
are leaning toward passing all but Amendment 21, the tax cut
proposal. However, the polls will change as election day nears.

For our readers to be among the best informed voters anywhere,
during the weeks before the election, this newspaper not only will
publish in-depth stories on the major issues and candidates facing
us, but offer our endorsements in the Nov. 1 edition.

Nationally, voter turnout is abysmally light even during general
elections. And Colorado and Douglas County are no exceptions.

But we are hopeful that, as we go to the polls for the first
major election of the new millennium, we will reverse this
disturbing trend – at least where we work and live.