The Beacon’s small staff puts a particular effort in providing coverage — valuable to voters, if not always splashy — in helping you figure out how to vote and how to enter that polling place with a clear understanding of the choices.

This election season — both Kansas and Missouri have primaries on Aug. 6 — we’ve teamed with a wide range of newsrooms to help produce probably the most comprehensive voter guide ever in Kansas City. If you live in Jackson, Clay, Platte, Wyandotte or Johnson counties, it’s got what you need to make an informed vote.

It came together out of a collaboration of the Kansas City Media Collective. The Beacon is proud to be a part of that group along with  American Public Square, Kansas City PBS/Flatland, KCUR, Missouri Business Alert and Startland News.

The collaboration combines efforts across newsrooms to ensure Kansas City voters get the crucial information they need. We enlisted The Kansas City Star to chip in. All the newsrooms recognized they were too small to break down the key facts and candidates in 100-plus contests alone. So we decided to divide and conquer.

“We’re realizing it’s more helpful if we can work together to make sure that we’re not duplicating our efforts,” said Maria Benevento, The Beacon’s education reporter. “We’re magnifying our powers instead of racing each other to the same stories.” 

KCMC recently joined efforts to design an intensive voter guide for Missourians and Kansans which offers free coverage of candidates running for federal and state positions in the Kansas City area and state constitutional amendments. 

“This year marks a critical year for elections,” Director of Product Hilary Becker said. “The KC Media Collective has developed a crucial product for the metro with the KC Voter Guide, and this guide will give voters the information they need as we make our way to November 4.” 

Benevento spearheaded writing smaller voting guides that highlighted voter registration and eligibility. 

“One of the things we’ve found is that there’s less information about super local elections, even though those are the ones where your vote has the most weight,” Benevento said. “So now, your vote is more important than ever.” 

The Beacon has also launched two separate election pages for Kansas and Missouri so readers can find consolidated election information based on where they live. 

You can access the complete KCMC voter guide at this link: https://kcvoterguide.org/.