In about three and a half weeks, the general election will take place in Ohio and nationwide.

Here in Lawrence County, we have a unique situation, in that none of the county races are on the ballot, as the Democratic Party did not field candidates.

As a result, Mike Finley is assured of being the next county commissioner and Paul David Knipp will get another term as auditor.

State Rep. Jason Stephens is also in a similar situation for his re-election. The only competitive regional race is the state Senate campaign to fill the seat of the term limited Bob Peterson.

This left us with a need for a different approach for our election guide this year, which always focuses on the local races.

So we decided to try an experiment this year and expanded our guide’s coverage to statewide and federal races, reaching out to those running for governor, U.S. Senate and other offices.

Questionnaires were sent to all major party candidates in those contests and we are pleased to report that most took the time to provide information to county voters. This is especially true in the Ohio Supreme Court races, where all six candidates got back to us.

We will run all of those responses in next weekend’s edition of The Tribune, in order to give voters plenty of time to read and share that information before the Nov. 8 election.

We thank all of the candidates who replied. It shows that they do not write off rural areas of the state in their campaigning.

And by providing this information to the public, we hope that it better communicates to voters the stances of those running in consequential races.

An informed public is essential for a functioning democracy.