To the Editor:

As former justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court, we’re writing with an urgent message. Please plan on voting in the Primary Election on Tuesday, March 3, by either early voting or on Election Day. There is one critically important primary race for judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals for Seat 3. We have all enthusiastically endorsed Attorney James Whalen for this seat and we encourage you to join us in our support for him. 

To the Editor:

I sent this letter via email to our congressmen, Rep. Chuck Edwards and Sens. Ted Budd and Thom Tillis.

In Bryson City, I'm preparing to vote in the Primary. We’re a poor county; most of the property is national forest and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Candidates for local offices are telling us how they plan to fund our outdated, worn-out infrastructure. There’s not enough sewer or water service for a new middle school, new housing or new business structures.

Voters in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District have endured years of disaster and instability, just as national trends are shifting hard against Republicans. Democrats believe this is their best chance in years to flip the gerrymandered seat currently held by Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson). Five candidates are asking for that chance. 

Over the past decade or more, Western North Carolina Republicans have proven that the only candidates that can beat incumbent Republican congressmen are other Republicans. Adam Smith talks like someone who has already settled on that outcome and is now working backward to make it inevitable. 

“What conservative voters in the United States want to see is Republicans have the intestinal fortitude to do what they said they were going to do,” Smith said. 

Throughout a year when Western North Carolina was begging for more hurricane recovery funding and a less bureaucratic inefficiency, the North Carolina General Assembly demonstrated incredible flexibility and focus — just not on governing. 

Sales executive Ken Brown says he’ll enter the Republican Primary for North Carolina’s 118th House District, setting up a challenge to incumbent Rep. Mark Pless. 

A relative newcomer to electoral politics but a familiar figure in conservative circles, Brown will campaign on a platform of “servant leadership,” with an emphasis on collaboration, transparency and deference to local governments. 

To the Editor:

The Smoky Mountain News has done a great disservice to the American people with the headline “America’s Worst Idea” (SMN, Feb. 28 edition). 

To the Editor:

I was judged rather harshly for a letter, by no less than six people in three newspapers, for doubting the average American voter's capacity to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from falsehoods.

WNC Sierra Club Political Co-Chair Ken Brame will discuss what is at stake for the environment in this fall’s election. He will advise voters on how to make an environmental difference at the WNC Sierra Club meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 2. 

Voting is going to look a bit different in North Carolina this year thanks to new partisan observers who will be eyeing voters as they cast ballots when in-person early voting kicks off in October. The new observers are touted as a way to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.