Everywhere you look, someone’s trying to talk you into voting.
Facebook? A message pops up, making sure you plan to vote.
Watching an NFL game? The players and coaches will lecture you on the importance of your vote.
You can’t even watch the Lima city council in action without someone urging you to exercise your right to vote.
And that’s all fine and dandy, but they seem to be missing an important part of the discussion. You shouldn’t just want to be a voter. You should want to be an informed voter.
After all, if you want to do something, you should do it well. If you dream of winning an NBA championship, are you aiming for LeBron James’ 28 points in the final game, or would you settle for Kyle Kuzma’s 2 points? Anything worth doing is worth doing right.
I’d hate to make people feel like democracy comes with homework, but frankly it does. And the more local an election gets, the harder it is to do your homework.
We’re living in a golden age of information and a golden age of disinformation. It’s more important today to know where you’re getting your information today than it ever has been before. You should challenge yourself to look at some mediums you don’t usually read or might not even like to try to round out your opinions.
Of course I want you to check out the election preview stories in The Lima News (all in one handy place, LimaOhio.com/tag/election). But that’s just a starting point. We don’t have enough room in print to walk you through every single opinion of a candidate, and you might care deeply about an issue that wouldn’t sway other people.
One thing I’ve appreciated in recent years is the growth of Facebook as a voter-rallying platform. Many of the candidates for elected office in the region have Facebook pages, and they show their personalities through those pages. Some people use their platform to pitch their ideas. Some of them use them to show their personality. Some of them just use them to rip the opposition.
I’m not trying to sway you to vote one way or another. I’m not even trying to sway you that there are more than two ways (although there are, with four tickets listed on the ballot and another six write-in possibilities). I am urging you to educate yourself before voting for anything from county commissioner to statehouse all the way up to the White House. Democracy is too important to not put in the right research before you vote.
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