Central Florida voters staring down a packed August primary are about to get a shared cheat sheet. The Orlando Sentinel is teaming with several Central Florida newsrooms to produce a single voters guide for the August primary, aiming to publish it online and in print by the end of July so readers can consult it before early voting. The joint project will send standardized questionnaires to candidates in federal, state, county and judicial races, then publish the answers together so voters can compare positions at a glance. Participating newsrooms say the effort is meant to make local contests easier to follow in an election year already overflowing with races and campaign noise.
Who’s behind the guide
The project is being coordinated through the News Collaborative of Central Florida, a cooperative that grew out of the Central Florida Journalism Ecosystem Summit and brings legacy and hyperlocal outlets under the same tent. Confirmed participants include Central Florida Public Media, WKMG-News 6, LkldNow, Ocala Gazette, Winter Park Voice, VoxPopuli of West Orange, Oviedo Community News and the Osceola News-Gazette, according to Central Florida Public Media. Organizers say pooling reporting muscle allows smaller outlets to expand their election coverage without burning time and staff on duplicate work.
What candidates will be asked
Reporters will send candidates questionnaires that press them on the top issues in their districts, how they would tackle affordability and where they stand on a proposed Florida constitutional amendment on property-tax reductions, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel. Candidates have already been contacted multiple times. If someone does not respond, the partners say they will clearly note the nonresponse and may pull statements from campaign websites or social media posts to help fill in basic gaps. The end goal is a side-by-side guide that offers quick, comparable answers instead of scattered sound bites across different outlets.
Where you’ll see it
The joint voters guide will run on the websites of every project partner, and it will also appear in print for outlets that still produce print editions. That cross-publishing strategy is meant to hit just about every kind of local news consumer, from broadcast viewers and weekly-paper readers to people who stick to neighborhood outlets online. Oviedo Community News notes that the Collaborative has already built shared reporting workflows and distribution plans for other projects, and those systems will be reused for the voters guide.
Why it matters
Newsrooms across Central Florida have slimmed down in recent years, and organizers say collaboration has become a practical way to rebuild consistent civic coverage. Central Florida Public Media points to the Collaborative’s earlier joint reporting work, along with a recent funding boost, as the foundation that is letting partners scale up election projects this year. Supporters argue that a single, shared guide will help voters cut through campaign spin and find clear, apples-to-apples comparisons on local choices that might otherwise fly under the radar.
Key dates to know
Florida’s primary election is scheduled for Aug. 18, 2026, and the state’s registration and mail-ballot deadlines arrive well before that. According to Election Protection, the registration deadline for the primary is July 20, and the mandatory early-voting window typically lands in the week before Election Day. Organizers say the publication timeline for the guide is built around those dates, giving voters time to review candidate answers before they mark a ballot.
Local reaction
“This is the first time we have news outlets in our region cooperating to create a guide to help voters make informed choices at the polls,” Roger Simmons said in comments published by the Orlando Sentinel. Reporters involved in the project have emphasized that it is editorially driven, with partners pledging to flag nonresponses and supply relevant context where needed so readers can see not just who spoke up, but also who stayed quiet.
