Something truly awe-inspiring happened this week across Utah and across the nation. Voters turned out.

According to the most recent data available, 176,379 ballots were cast across Utah County in last week’s midterm elections. That’s almost 67 percent voter turnout, which is phenomenal, compared to the average turnout for Utah County, which is in the mid-30 percent range.

This wasn’t even a presidential election, and yet, Utah County voters wanted their voices heard. And who can blame them? Many key issues were on the ballot this year, representing true power to the people.

For years, measures like medical marijuana and Medicaid expansion have been bouncing around the state Legislature. To be frank, it would appear that voters were tired of legislators either doing nothing, failing to garner votes from their fellow lawmakers or being rejected by the governor.

For both Proposition 2 and 3, partial versions of the propositions were passed as bills in the Utah Legislature, but it was clear voters wanted more. Proposition 3 will supersede the partial expansion that was approved this March. Proposition 3 isn’t wrapped in quite the level of red tape as the partial expansion bill and complies with the Affordable Care Act. The passing of Proposition 2, which provides for medicinal marijuana, shows the Legislature what its constituents want, despite whatever compromise or rewriting that occurs later this year with the special legislative session.

We urge our legislators to stop dragging their feet on issues that Utahns clearly care about. It shouldn’t take a ballot initiative and hundreds of thousands of favorable votes for our legislators to finally open their eyes.

A number of local issues also peppered ballots, with tax increases, bond proposals and other local propositions uniting communities to better their cities.

But, unfortunately, this election was also a microcosm of what happens when deliberately false information is spread to harm the votes of many, or, as our president so likes to call it, “fake news.”

To start with a larger race, the race for the 4th Congressional District, which still hasn’t been called, showcased the power of negative advertising. Both candidates hurled assailing and fractious messages towards each others’ campaigns, making accusations that McAdams moved to New York to work for Hillary Clinton — he moved there to attend law school — or that Love collected illegal contributions to her campaign fund. While she has been accused of ethics violations by the Federal Election Commission, no formal finding of wrongdoing was found.

Each side relied on fear, misinformation and some really sinister Photoshopping to make the opposition appear to be either morally bankrupt or selling their soul to the devil. Facts of either candidate’s stances or policies were buried under the diatribe of hostility and spite.

Locally, we’d like to discuss another race that is so close, that after Tuesday night, just one vote separated the yays from the nays: Proposition 5 in Orem. The ballot measure focused essentially on defending the City Council’s vote earlier this year to construct a high-density housing complex near Utah Valley University, primarily for students.

However, in the months leading to Tuesday night, misinformation spread like a virus, primarily from those opposing the housing. They claimed that voting against it was defending Orem’s neighborhoods, saving the children of Alpine School District and implying that this would place a moratorium on high-density housing in Orem. This could be favorable for those who don’t want to see Orem become overburdened with renters and college students. And those apartments aren’t cheap, they claim, so why force students to pay almost $500 a month for a room when they could just rent a unit illegally zoned for half the price?

Proposition 5 only dealt with one housing complex on one plot of land. Nothing else. It does nothing, and we repeat, nothing, for other high-density housing projects across the city. Two projects are already planned for more housing near UVU. The city has adopted the State Street Master Plan, which means that high-density housing will not be constructed in neighborhoods. The Alpine School District, the Utah Taxpayer’s Association and UVU have all come out in support of the proposition. Voting against Proposition 5 does nothing for other high-density housing complexes. The only thing voting against Proposition 5 does is alienate renters already living in Orem, making them feel unwelcome when they’re just trying to get by in a city that so many others clearly love.

The university has already said that if Proposition 5 doesn’t pass, the state will likely just buy the land. The deal that has been polished and perfected over years of planning between Woodbury Corp., the city and the school district will be tossed out the door. The school district won’t see hundreds of thousands in tax benefits, the builders won’t have to abide by city’s deal, and there’s nothing that says they have to keep the first floor of the complex mixed use, potentially adding almost 900 tenants to the complex. Talk about parking problems.

Social media groups have been ablaze with arguments over Proposition 5 and we feel our stance has been made blatantly clear. But the arguments against the apartment complex have downright enraged us because of the misinformation laden in LetOremVote’s rhetoric. The falsehoods were so disruptive that we saw social media posts imploring others if they could change their vote, because they were duped into voting against Proposition 5. When people intentionally mislead others using false information and fear tactics, it’s the closest thing to rigging an election without being a Russian Twitter bot.

With how close that race is, we hope those who were misled into the intents of Proposition 5 do not make or break the final results, which no doubt will be recounted. We hope that university students can be closer to school and that other renters will not feel further ostracized by their neighbors.

We once again express our gratitude that so many made their voices heard this Election Day. We know that there were a lot of issues to be passionate about, as we clearly still are, but we implore that honesty be exercised in future elections, not fearmongering nor deceit.