Please vote tomorrow — if you are registered. Exercise your most precious right as an American citizen and make your voice heard. Be as informed as possible, give careful thought to your choices, and take your best self and your conscience to the polls. That’s all that’s required.
Vote for good people.
It’s really that simple. Please help bring America back to what America can be and should be again — a nation of good people governing themselves and trying to find common ground for the common good.
I still remember the terrific pride I had when my high school civics teacher took our class to the county courthouse so we could register to vote when we were 18. Small public school in a small Kentucky town, but the responsibility of citizenship had been firmly ingrained. And, yes, it mattered. Not many polls opened during the ensuing years that I wasn’t there to do my civic duty.
You should vote as you choose, but here are a few things to think about:
• Don’t vote just for “Rs” or “Ds” or “Independents.” Put a stop now, in the voting booth, to the “them vs. us” mentality that has taken over the public dialogue. There are good people on all sides. Vote for them. None of us will get our way on every issue — but we can vote for people who will be good listeners to all sides — not just to the people who gave them money, or people who are “well connected,” or people who have a pre-conceived agenda. The agenda should be just “good government” — and that means compromise (no, it isn’t a bad word) and negotiation and keeping an open mind. It means listening more than you pontificate. Let’s return to civil dialogue.
• Don’t vote for any 2020 election deniers. Enough of that. At this point, they just want attention and shouldn’t get it. It’s been investigated and poked and prodded and decided. Poor, whiny losers should just shut up and go away — and shouldn’t keep using “the stolen election” as a club to beat the rest of us silly. Move on. Our elections are safe and secure and your vote will be counted. Whoever is declared the winner by the final election official is the winner, and that’s that.
• Avoid voting in the nonpartisan judges races for those who wear their partisanship proudly on their sleeves. They owe us more than that — and they owe it to us to follow the law, period. For judge candidates to flaunt the law, to say the law doesn’t apply to them, is the worst kind of duplicity. There’s a very good reason judge races in Kentucky are nonpartisan. Please put a stop to this affront in the voting booth. The “rule of law” is what distinguishes the American way from tyranny — the idea that everybody should be able to see the “law” applied equally and fairly and by-the-book is simply incontrovertible. Please do not put people on the bench who do not follow the law.
• Avoid voting for candidates who have been heavily funded by “dark” money from outside-of-Kentucky deep-pocket funders. Why would we knowingly allow money to buy our elections? Why would we suborn our own wills to deep pockets who can fund advertisements that twist the facts and bombard us with nonsense? Lying has, unfortunately, become an art form in public discourse, and we need to put our collective foot down. Please don’t fall for it. Think, think, think.
• Mark your ballot carefully. There are a lot of city council and county commission races on local ballots. Read carefully and follow the directions. If you are directed to vote for “four” or “six” or “three” don’t vote for more. Your vote won’t count if you do.
• Vote your way, not someone else’s. Examine your own conscience. Don’t be led by doctrine or the loudest voices or the bullies with bullhorns. Be led by what you, as an American, believes is right for America, a nation, a melting pot, a collection of people of various races, religions, beliefs, diverse habits and practices — and help build a nation our children will be proud to claim as their own.
Judy Clabes is editor and publisher of the Northern Kentucky Tribune. Reach her at judy@nkytrib.com.
