Today is Election Day. It’s the day candidates have anticipated with an emotional mix of hope, dread, excitement, anxiety, fear and internally private questions about their personal sanity. It’s the beginning of either their beginning or their end. It’s the culmination of months, maybe years, of preparation — the day they learn if they’ve won or lost. 

Their future is, of course, in your hands and my hands and the hands of every voter living in their respective precincts. So I’ll say right now: If you haven’t yet voted, put this paper down and go vote. The polls are open until 8 p.m.  

If you’ve never campaigned, or helped someone else campaign, then understanding what the candidates are going through at this moment is difficult to comprehend — or explain.

I actually ran for office years ago. By the time I finished a 4-year appointment to a city planning commission, I was very involved in the city’s development, and very aware of the flaws in people, policies and processes that stood in the way of that development. So I campaigned for a seat on the city council. I won. I served the 4-year term, then because I was too involved to quit, ran for a second term which I also won.  

I know something about the excruciating experience of campaigning.  It’s demanding, exhausting and entirely necessary. Its purpose, of course, is to educate us, the public, so we can figure out which candidate is most likely to make the choices we want to see made. An educated public is prepared — and qualified — to vote.  

So yes, you should vote — IF you’ve prepared yourself.  A voter who mindlessly fills out a ballot without studying the candidates or the amendments is actually more harmful than helpful. It takes just 30 minutes to study the online information about the candidates. Or to open their websites and learn about them. Or to read their literature that’s been filling your mailbox. Voting blindly just undermines those who cast informed, researched votes.

An incident occurred when I served on the city council that emphasized the value of voting. We were wrestling with a difficult issue. An opposing citizen in the audience became vocally adamant that the council was filled with idiots who clearly didn’t know what we were doing and shouldn’t be governing. Exasperated, I finally asked him, “Sir, did you vote in the last election?”  His embarrassed, stumbling reply said it all.  A fellow council member invited our mouthy friend to sit down and shut up. “You chose to have no say in this,” he was told.

Fairly brash. But I admit I agreed.

Some folks don’t vote because they think their vote doesn’t count. “My candidate never wins, so why bother?” they whine. That’s nonsense. Every vote counts in multiple ways.

First, even if your candidate doesn’t win, your vote is a strong message to the winning opponent that differing opinions must be weighed, considered and respected.  

Your vote counts for generations when you make it a family event. With encouragement, your young kids can help you prepare your ballot and mail it. Or they can go to the polls with you, right into the booth where you show them how voting is done. They’ll think it’s kind of weird at first. But if you’re consistent, they’ll eventually remind you when it’s time to go vote.

Your grown-up kids provide hearty perspectives when you discuss candidates and issues with them. Talking with people we know, trust and respect provides healthy sharing, debating and sometimes even changes in positions or attitudes. An engaged next generation of voters will still believe in voting because they won’t succumb to the lazy victim attitude of “My vote doesn’t count so why bother?” So go vote. And kudos if you already did.

The final step in the election process actually happens tomorrow. It’s the part where we choose to act like adults. If our candidates win, we get out of bed, wake up the kids, get them to school, get ourselves to work, stay positive, live our lives and love our freedoms.

And if our candidates lose, we do the same. 

We vote like it all depends on our candidates. And we live like it all depends on us.