Put away the rotten tomatoes; bring on the civil debate

The whole point of having elected office is to give voters a choice about who represents them.

But too often, downticket races for offices like county auditor don't generate much attention.

Not so in Johnson County this season, where Auditor Tom Slockett is facing a tough primary opponent (In that county, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2:1, the real election action often is in the spring, not November). It's the only contested race for Johnson County office this year.

The good news is that means we can expect some meaty debate in at least one local race. That is, if some Slockett-haters can get their over-the-top rhetoric under control.

It's only right that we have a rigorous contest for every elected office. But two anonymous websites launched since late last week have little to do with vetting Slockett. They're just dirty pool.

I won't name either smear site here. Suffice to say, they're easily found.

On one, the unnamed author claims to list “examples of missteps” Slockett's made in office going as far back as 2004, purporting to give “the rest of the story” behind public incidents without naming a single source - to protect informants from retaliation, of course.

Another site tries to influence voters by using such civil and sophisticated tactics as Photoshopping Slockett's head onto a fat old orangutan's body. Hilarious.

Slockett, who is under investigation by the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board for allegations he used public resources to support his re-election bid, certainly has some explaining to do.

In 2008, after a series of elections errors, The Gazette saw fit to write a pre-Election Day editorial warning Slockett and his office to mind the details in order to try and break a string of elections marked by error:

A 2007 glitch that caused the office to post incorrect results to its website for about 20 minutes; technical problems that delayed counting of the county's absentee ballots the year before. In 2005, returns initially left out 60 game-changing write-ins. The year before that, nearly 200 absentee ballots were found after the “final” election count.

All the errors were corrected before results were canvassed and recorded, but it didn't exactly inspire voter confidence.

Voters must know how Slockett proposes to address these ethical and procedural concerns so they can decide for themselves if he's still the right candidate for the job.

But they also deserve an election that's based on more than hidden detractors lobbing rotten tomatoes at the incumbent.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net