We ask a lot of the people who hold public office. Election Day asks something of us, too.
By Tim Allen, Managing Editor
For months, candidates have been telling us what they want to do if we give them our votes. Now the campaign clock is running out. They’ve had their say. It’s our turn.
Voting won’t guarantee you get your wish. Your candidate might lose. Someone you helped elect might disappoint you. A state question you feel strongly about might go the other way.
But when you don’t vote, you leave those decisions to someone else. They might agree with you. They might not. Either way, their choices will affect your life.
We’re privileged to be able to choose our leaders in free and fair elections. That opportunity deserves more than our appreciation.
It deserves our participation.
After more than three decades in Oklahoma government, I know an election doesn’t end when the votes are counted. We live with the results in our schools, our tax bills and the services we count on. Good decisions can help people for years. Bad ones can take just as long to undo.
Before I had a ballot
My appreciation for voting started long before I worked at the Capitol.
My mom liked to tell me about her high school graduation speaker who emphasized the responsibility to vote. That message stayed with her. It stayed with me, too.
She also took me with her to vote at the fire station down the street when I was a toddler. I didn’t understand the choices she was making. But I grew up knowing that voting was something important enough to make time for.
That lesson has lasted through elections when I was excited to vote and others when I decidedly was not.
You don’t have to be enthusiastic about every name on the ballot to take your vote seriously. Sometimes voting means choosing the person you trust most. Sometimes it means voting for the person you distrust the least.
Making that judgment isn’t always easy. It’s worth taking the time to think it through. We’re choosing people who will have power to make decisions for the rest of us.
Our turn to decide
It’s easy to feel that your one vote won’t change much. Most of us will never cast the tie-breaking vote.
Even an open governor’s race leaves plenty of voters on the sidelines. In 2018, the last time Oklahoma had an open governor’s seat, about 56% of registered voters cast a ballot. Nearly 44% left the decisions to everyone else.
Kevin Stitt won with more than 54% of the votes cast for governor. But his support amounted to about 30% of all registered voters.
Low turnout doesn’t reduce the power of the people elected. It just means fewer of us had a say in choosing them.
At OK Politics Today, we’ve worked to help you understand the candidates and questions on the ballot. We hope it’s helped.
Take a little time to read, consider and make up your own mind. You don’t owe a candidate your vote just because of a party label, an endorsement or a familiar name. They’re asking for your trust. You get to decide whether they’ve earned it.
We ask elected officials to take their responsibilities seriously. Voting is one way we take ours seriously.
If you’ve already voted, you’ve done your part. If you haven’t, make time.
It’s important. Don’t miss out.
