God forbid that voters — Republicans, Democrats or independents — actually think before voting. Yes, researching diverse candidates and complicated issues (such as this month’s successful vote on the $33.4 million Extraco Events Center expansion) is sometimes harder to do these days, given the gradual decline of traditional candidate forums and the public’s difficulty in sorting out credible news sources. But if we are to honor the men and women who have died for such freedoms — many of us will be doing so next weekend — then the very least we can do on the home front is carefully consider candidates on the ballot. That means showing more depth as Americans than simply deciding whether a candidate is Republican or Democrat.