We see track­ing polls by the bushel—all vary­ing in accu­racy and results. Yet a com­mon theme among them is that the poll­sters must make a deci­sion about who is likely to vote. Will more youth vote this time? What about seniors? Inde­pen­dents? The sad thing is that nobody is entirely sure who will vote come elec­tion time.


I’ve never under­stood this. Why peo­ple would choose not to vote.


Excuses in the past have always included from ”My vote doesn’t mat­ter” to “I didn’t have time to go to the poll sta­tion.” But our last guber­na­to­r­ial race was decided by 129 votes statewide, and your bal­lot was mailed to you and is prob­a­bly sit­ting on your kitchen counter unopened and ignored. I don’t care who you vote for, but open your bal­lot, sit down with your vot­ers guide, and start serv­ing as a cit­i­zen instead of a dis­in­ter­ested bystander.


Maybe you don’t know who to pick for that judi­cial or PUD race. That’s okay. Because I bet you know who you might want to pick for Pres­i­dent, Gov­er­nor, or Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Even if your can­di­date doesn’t win, your vote was not wasted. You were part of the polit­i­cal process, and your voice was still heard. Take own­er­ship in your coun­try.


And con­grat­u­la­tions, you now have a right to say, “Well, I didn’t vote for them.”