CBM Releases Voter Guide for August 3rd, 2006 Shelby County Elections

Memphis TN, July 18th, 2006

The Coalition for a Better Memphis (CBM) today issued the 2006 Shelby County Voter Guide. The voter guide provides evaluations of some of the candidates in the August 3rd election including Shelby County Mayor, Shelby County Sheriff, Shelby County School Board, Shelby County Commission, Memphis City Council and the Memphis Charter Commission.

“The 2006 Shelby County Voter Guide is an important tool to help provide voters with information necessary to make informed choices on the election,” said Roby S. Williams, co-chair of the Coalition and president of Black Business Association. “We feel it is critical for voters to have a real understanding the candidates’ qualifications and their commitment to key issues facing Shelby County.”

"The Coalition has worked hard to evaluate the candidates. We hope our efforts will help to further educate Shelby County voters as they head to the polls on August 3rd,” said Bobbi Gillis, co-chair of the Coalition and executive vice president of FaxonGillis Homes.

The evaluation process is exceptionally thorough. The Coalition members agreed that there were two sets of qualities that voters should consider in deciding for which candidates to vote. First, it is important to know the candidates’ general qualifications for holding office including the candidates’ belief systems and their experience. Second, voters need to be aware of the candidates’ understanding of and commitment to key issues facing Shelby County today. Candidates are asked to fill out a questionnaire and submit to personal interviews with the Coalition.

How to Use the Evaluation Tables

1) CBM teams evaluated candidates on the basis of a variety of qualities. If you believe that each of these qualities and issues is equally important in a candidate, please refer to the “overall score” at the right of each table. The overall score represents each candidate’s average score across the eight categories.

2) However, if one or two of these qualities or issues are more important to you than the others, the please give special attention to how candidates rated in these areas.

Category scores and overall scores are one 1 to 100 scale with 100 being the highest possible score.