The Breeze is committed to providing abundant election coverage, particularly for the Cape Coral City Council races.

To that end, we begin today with an introduction of the candidates and will move next week into issue-related Q&As. We present these graph style by City Council seat so that voters may easily familiarize themselves with each candidate’s position on key issues.

Online, we create a special Election category on our website under “News” so voters can easily find all of the “Questions of the Week” as they are published. We also include all of the election-related stories there. The Breeze will report en route to the Aug. 18 Primary for Council seats 2, 3, 5 and 7, and the Nov. 3 General Election, which will add face-offs in three of the four races.

We strive to be comprehensive, and we invite voters to read.

We will list the all-candidates-invited forums and this year will add the virtual and the livestreamed forums so that readers may hear directly the people seeking to represent us for the next four years.

Information, factually presented, is important but so is “meeting” the person behind the photo, behind the text. Hearing them answer questions spontaneously often gives a whole new perspective. Trust us on this.

For those looking to “meet” the candidates in light of restrictions imposed by the pandemic, there is an opportunity next week.

On June 24, at 6:30 p.m. via Facebook Live, residents will be able to see candidates speak about issues pertaining to city government. The forum, which will be held at the Southwest Florida Military Museum, is closed to the public due to concerns about COVID-19.

The event is being organized by Cape resident John Karcher and will be moderated by County Commissioner candidate Michael Dreikorn and local Realtor, Jay LaGace.

So far, Mr. Karcher said he has commitments from 11 of the 12 candidates to take part.

Meanwhile, let us say thank you to those seeking to represent our community for the next four years. We recognize that it’s a challenging — and often under appreciated — job.

Thank you:

District 2: Bryan Mark DeLaHunt, Todd Mauer and Dan Sheppard

District 3: Christopher Cammarota, Tom Hayden, Joseph Kilrane and Edward Nichols

District 5: Louis Navarra and Robert Welsh

District 7: Jessica Cosden (incumbent), Patty Cummings and Derrick Donnell.

Let us thank, as well, the candidates seeking county, state and federal office — yes, it’s a race-packed ballot, the first the city has seen for its municipal offices since those races got bumped from the even-year cycle by the Lee Elections Office nearly two decades ago.

Turnout for the city’s first experiment with odd-year elections in 2003 was less than 11 percent.

In didn’t changed much when the city moved its municipal elections to fall of 2007.

Before the forced change to odd years, Cape Coral traditionally had the best turnout in the county.

So kudos to Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle, who, upon taking office, looked at the abysmal voter turnout that plagued odd-year elections and opted to listen to municipal officials who had asked — and asked — for a return to those bigger ballots, which, incidentally, also provide a cost savings to Cape taxpayers each election year of nearly $500,000.

Early voting for the Aug. 18 Primary Election is set for Aug. 8-15.

Vote-by-mail ballots may be requested from the Supervisor of Elections.

Visit www.lee.vote to submit your request.

Vote-by-mail ballot requests must be received by 5 p.m. on the Saturday 10 days prior to the election.

– Breeze editorial