Most Voters Say Voting Is A Duty - Not A Choice

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done on October 19th and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,501 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

 

The Polls Are Looking Great - But Polls Don't Elect Candidates

The quote above is from respected pollster G. Elliott Morris (who does the Strength In Numbers Poll). His opinion is not out of the norm. Poll after poll shows Democrats leading, and making inroads in even bright red states. 

It was expected that Democrats would likely take control of the House of Representatives (possibly by a large margin), but now it's starting to look like they can also take control of the Senate. 

This is great news, and it should encourage Democrats across the nation (even those in normally red states). But it also poses a danger. The danger is that some Democrats and Independents will start to think the election is already a foregone conclusion - and that their votes are not needed. Thinking that could cause them to stay at home instead of voting (which could involve braving the weather and waiting in long electoral lines).

But polls don't elect any candidates. They are nothing more than at snapshot of how voters are thinking at a particular time. No poll can do a voter's job.

Only voters can elect a candidate. Don't get so over confident that you think your vote is not needed. It is badly needed. Every single vote counts!

Make sure you cast your vote - and encourage your friends and family to do the same. No matter how difficult voting may turn out to be, your vote is needed.

I believe there will be a huge blue wave on November 3rd. But that will happen only if voters turn out in large numbers.

Staying home is just a vote for Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants.

Voters Are More Concerned About Voter Suppression Than Voter Fraud

 The chart above is from the Navigator Poll -- done between March 12th and 16th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 registered voters, with a 3.1 point margin of error.

The Misnamed "Save America Act" Is Actually Anti-Democratic

 The following is part of a post by Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian:

Rather than address the cratering economy, undertake their constitutional responsibilities to end a reckless and illegal war, hold Donald Trump accountable for his financial corruption and pedophile racket cover-up, and/or reform rogue, widely loathed immigration shock troops, Republicans at the behest of Trump (who also insisted on the re-redistricting scheme that has backfired spectacularly), are debating the inappropriately-named SAVE America Act. . . .

The SAVE America Act is based on the “groundless assertions that U.S. elections were rife with fraud,” and the equally groundless notion that millions of people who are not legally permitted to vote are casting ballots. Each time this has been investigated, Republicans have identified — at most — a handful of suspected cases (and those may be clerical errors). The “solution” in search of a problem is actually Republicans’ thinly disguised plot to sow massive confusion and disenfranchise as many voters as needed to keep them in power. That’s their election strategy to counteract the public’s overwhelming disapproval of their MAGA agenda. They aren’t “saving” anything except their own political careers. . . .

The SAVE America Act is not about fraud or even about photo ID, which many states already require. The SAVE America Act would require voters to show a passport or birth certificate as proof of citizenship to register or re-register to vote. Roughly 21 million Americans don’t have ready access to those documents. About half do not even have a passport. Millions of women (approximately 7 million women in California, 5 million in Texas, and 4.7 million in Florida, according to the Voter Participation Center) whose married names are not on their birth certificates or passports would face barriers to registering. Election officials who make good-faith clerical errors would face civil and even criminal penalties.

Those registration requirements would go into effect immediately, creating chaos and preventing millions from voting. And to boot, the SAVE America Act would require voters to show their passport or birth certificate in-person to register (or each time they re-register when they move or change other information) — thereby eliminating registering by mail or online and severely hampering automatic voter registration. It would also hamper voting by mail by imposing a new requirement to send in a photocopy of the voter’s ID (something only one state currently requires).

This massive disenfranchisement push mimics Jim Crow legislation (e.g., requiring a passport, which can cost $165, is akin to a poll tax; obtaining a birth certificate may involve travel to the county clerk in one’s place of birth and paying a fee). It is blatantly unconstitutional, a gambit by the most lawless and corrupt regime in history (whose identity is rooted in election denial) to take over elections from the states. . . .

In short, there is no “saving” in the SAVE America Act, if one accepts that America is a democracy in which voters hold power. It seeks to eliminate voters, eliminate threats to White supremacy, eliminate MAGA control, eliminate the constitutional directive that states control elections, eliminate privacy (when the unredacted voter rolls go to the feds), and, most of all, eliminate democracy. If only a fraction of the eligible electorate gets to vote, we do not have majority rule by the “people”; instead, we have anti-democratic white nationalists cherry-picking the electorate to stay in power. . . .

The “SAVE America Act” makes a mockery of language, giving the false image of conserving voting when it instead aims to blow up the entire democratic election process. Democrats should call the bill what it is: The Jim Crow Act.

Most Say ICE Should Not Be Allowed At Voting/Counting Sites

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between February 6th and 9th of a nationwide sample of 1,730 adults (including 1,551 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.1 points for adults and 3 points for registered voters.

How The Senators Voted On Ending The GOP Shutdown

 

Public Opposes Trump's Efforts To Make Voting More Difficult

The chart above is from a survey done by the Pew Research Center between August 4th and 10th of a nationwide sample of 3,554 adults, with a 1.8 point margin of error.
 

Democrats Hold An Edge In Generic Congressional Ballot

The chart shows the results of the latest weekly poll by the YouGov Poll.
 

Polls Are Showing A Close Election (That Should Help Democrats)

 

In 2016, most polls had Hillary Clinton with a comfortable lead. But Donald Trump carried some swing states with a small margin and won the Electoral College. Were the polls wrong? Many pundits said so.

I don't think the polls were wrong. But polls can't predict who will actually go to the polls and vote. And too many Democrats and Independents thought the election was in the bag and their vote wasn't needed - so they stayed home and did not vote. It was a bad mistake.

This year, the polls are all showing a very close election. Is that going to be the case?

Maybe not. It all depends on turnout.

Trump's supporters will vote. Most are radicals, and radicals can be depended on to vote. But they are not a majority. And with Trump's past, coupled with the poor campaign he's running, it is doubtful that he can increase his support. Most people simply don't like him.

If there is a huge turnout, Kamala Harris will win. If not, then it will indeed be a close election, and Trump could win. It all depends on Democrats and Independents going to the polls and voting - not having too many repeat the mistake of 2016.

I think the polls are helping Democratic candidates. They have the Democrats and Independents scared that Trump could win. That fear should get them to vote!

Kamala Harris (and other Democrats) could win by a sizable margin. It all depends on you. Make sure you vote, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.

There's More Than Candidates On The Ballot In This Election

 

Do you think the only thing on your election ballot are candidates - and you must just worry about whether you like them or not? Then you're not looking at the big picture. There is much more on there. The way you vote will determine what kind of country you want.

Do you want to insure our democracy survives? Do you want to insure a good and fair economy? Do you want to protect citizen rights? All of those, and more, is on the ballot. Here are a few things that you will be voting for (or against):

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS are on the ballot. The Republicans have banned abortion in many states and would like to do it nationwide. They also plan to attack contraception and IVF. Democrats want to assure reproductive rights in all states - giving women control over there own bodies. And Democrats want to protect IVF and contraception.

TAXES are on the ballot. Republicans want to reauthorize the Trump tax cuts (82% of which go to the rich and super-rich). Democrats want to cut taxes for those making less than $400,000 and insure the rich pay their fair share.

MINIMUM WAGE is on the ballot. Republicans want to keep the minimum wage at $7.25 and hour, which is a poverty wage even for full-time workers. Democrats want to raise the minimum wage to a livable wage (about $15.00 and hour), because they believe no one willing to work should have to live in poverty.

VOTING RIGHTS are on the ballot. The Republicans have been busy trying to curb the voting rights of those who they think might vote against them, and they are not done in that effort. Democrats want to insure all citizens can vote - and make it easier for them to do that.

A FAIR ECONOMY is on the ballot. Republicans want to give more to millionaires and billionaires. Democrats want to insure that all citizens can share in this country's rising productivity.

A SAFER COUNTRY is on the ballot. Republicans want to make it easier for anyone to get any kind of gun they want. And they protect the right of criminals to get a gun by opposing background checks on all gun sales. Democrats want to plug the holes in the background check law, and initiate discussions on what kind of guns should be allowed and where they may be carried,

Your vote is not just for a candidate or party. It is to determine just what kind of country we will have!

Polls Aren't Wrong - But There's Something They Can't Know

In 2016, the polls all told us the American people wanted Hillary Clinton to be president. But thanks to a close votes in a handful of states, and the archaic electoral college, Trump became president.

In 2022, many polls were predicting a "red wave" with voters preferring Republicans because of President Biden's unpopularity. But the "red wave" fizzled as a massive number of Democrats and Independents voted.

In both cases, the media was full of headlines saying the polls were wrong! Were they? 

I don't think they were wrong. They fairly accurately told us what the American public was thinking. So why didn't the elections turn out as predicted by the polls?

Because there is one thing the polls (or anyone else) can't know - who and how many will vote. Some polls try to account for that by differentiating "likely voters" from all registered voters. But it's still a guessing game. Someone that claims they will defnitely vote might not, and someone who normally doesn't vote may decide to vote.

And if the polls show one candidate with a large lead, some of their supporters may decide their vote is not needed. And supporters of the candidate losing in the polls may decide it's hopeless and not vote. Both of those can skew the results, and make us think the polls were wrong (even though they accurately told us the mood of the public). 

I like polls. Polls can tell us the mood of the country. But polls cannot actually predict the winner all the time. So, disregard whether your candidate is ahead or behind in the polls - and VOTE. Voting is the only thing that decides an election. Make sure your's counts.

Democrats Hope For Huge Turnout - Republicans Don't Want That

The conventions are now over. The Republican convention was about fear and anger. The Democratic convention was about hope and joy. But neither type of convention wins an election.

The polls are now showing Harris with a lead (that seems to be growing). But while polls can make you feel good or scare you, they might not even be right - and they don't win elections either.

There is only one thing that wins a fair election - VOTES (and how many are cast for each candidate).

Trump's MAGA cult will be voting. They aren't a majority, but they will all be voting. And if too many Democrats and Independents stay home on Election Day, there are enough of them to put Trump back in the White House.

That would be tragic for the country and many of its citizens. The only cure is for Democrats and Independents to vote in massive numbers.

If there is a massive turnout, then Kamala Harris will be elected president and both houses of Congress will likely be controlled by Democrats. If the turnout is weak, Trump will win and one, or both, houses of Congress, will be controlled by Republicans.

This is going to be a turnout election. And in a turnout election, every vote is important. Do your patriotic duty and vote - and make sure your family, friends, and neighbors also vote. 

Things Are Looking Better For Dems But Much Work Remains

The chart above is from poll analyst Nate Silver.  It shows Kamala Harris with a 3.1 point lead nationwide over Donald Trump.

This is quite a change from just a few weeks ago, when most polls were showing Trump with a lead over the Democratic candidate. Democrats have been rejuvenated by the candidacy of Kamala Harris Thousands of volunteers have joined the campaign, and donations are exceeding all expectations.

The Democratic convention is next week, and it is likely that Harris will get another boost in the polls after that. Conventions tend to have that effect.

But it is not yet the time to celebrate. I appreciate the joy and enthusiasm that has infected the Democratic campaign - and I hope it continues. But much work remains to be done.

The Republicans will assuredly dip into their box of dirty tricks. They will call Harris every name in the book. And they will accuse her of many ridiculous things. There is only one cure for that. We must continue to register voters and then make sure they get to the polls in November (or October to early vote).

Trump's cult will be voting. We need a massive turnout to counter them. Make sure you vote. Then make sure your family, friends, and neighbors do the same. A huge turnout will put Kamala Harris in the White House (and hopefully Democrats in control of Congress).

Only you can keep Trump out of the White House. And you do that by voting!

When Trump Said That He Meant Something Else (Satire)

 In this great satire, Alexandra Petri (in The Washington Post) has fun with Trump's statement that christians won't have to vote again after this election:

Probably, as usual, this is meaningless. You know how some people are. You cannot take anything they say literally. The speeches of Donald Trump are supposed to be surreal and unsettling. Like a Salvador Dalí painting, but with words.

So I’m sure that when the former president said, “Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” and, “We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote,” he meant something different than what it sounded like.

It sounded pretty scary and autocratic, I agree! But look, when you’re a nail, everything Donald Trump says sounds like a hammer. That doesn’t mean it is or isn’t a hammer. That just means you need to calm down.

Why, off the top of my head, I can think of plenty of reasons you would say something like this and not mean that you were intending to stop elections:

• Trump knows that something will happen in the lives of all his listeners — nothing bad, just something that will keep them busy in 2028, when other voters will take their place.
• He has the gift of prophecy and foresees a horrifying cataclysm that will make voting obsolete. Not his doing! Something to do with magma. He can’t elaborate because he doesn’t want to worry you.
• Trump will simply not be running in four years because he knows the Constitution doesn’t permit it, so he’s indifferent to what you do then and happy to see Democrats win!
• This quote was simply broken up wrong during transcription. The actual sentences were, “We’ll have it fixed so good. You’re not going to have to. Vote!”
• He means you won’t need to vote because the country will be so free and so far from autocracy that you won’t even have to worry.
• He didn’t mean everyone; he just meant “my beautiful Christians”! He thinks their influence in politics is too great and wants to discourage their turnout.
• Hyperbole — he only meant you will have to stop voting for president. State and local elections will still take place normally.
• In four years, the country will be overrun with bears and it will be too dangerous to go out and vote, and Donald Trump knows about this. Voting will pick back up in 2032 once the bears have had their fun.
• He means nothing. No further questions!
• Currently this does mean exactly what it sounds like, but he is going to say “... not!” in a few weeks. He loves his jokes.
• He just means the totally unworrisome thing his defenders are saying he meant: that by 2028 everything will be so perfectly arranged according to conservative Christian voters’ desires that no unanswered wish could possibly compel them to the polls. By then, we will have Bibles and the Ten Commandments in every classroom, abortions and no-fault divorce nowhere, and the married, heterosexual couple as the only valid family structure. See, isn’t that so much better?
• Or the magma!

The Way To Save Abortion Is To Vote Against Republicans

From The New York Times editorial board: 

However the mifepristone case turns out, the threats to reproductive rights the justices unleashed by overturning Roe go much further.

The anti-abortion movement is pursuing its aims on many legal fronts. One focus of intense activity are so-called fetal-personhood laws, which endow fetuses (and, in some cases, even fertilized eggs) with the same legal rights as living, breathing human beings. Last month, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization were to be protected as “extrauterine children,” relying in part on an 1872 state law. That sent lawmakers in Alabama scrambling to protect a procedure that is highly popular among Republicans and Democrats alike. Three weeks after the court ruling, they passed a law protecting patients and doctors who perform I.V.F. procedures from legal liability.

Fetal-personhood laws can also be used to target access to birth control, embryonic stem cell research and even women who suffer miscarriages.

In eliminating a woman’s constitutional right to choose what happens in her own body, the Supreme Court claimed to be respecting the democratic process by allowing state legislatures to determine whether abortion should be legal, and what, if any, limits should be placed on it. . . .

Instead of being settled at the state level, less than two years since the Dobbs ruling the issue of abortion has returned to the court and is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The Dobbs ruling has forced a new public debate on abortion, and galvanized Americans’ support for it, which has been strong for decades. Since 1975, a majority of Americans have supported legal abortion in some or all cases, according to polling by Gallup, and that support has increased slightly since Dobbs. The percentage of Americans who think abortion should be illegal in all cases has gone down.

Since Roe was overturned in 2022, in every state where reproductive rights has been on the ballot, from Vermont to Kentucky, the abortion rights side has won. . . .

There are limits to the state-by-state approach when it comes to protecting bodily autonomy. Some states don’t allow ballot initiatives of the type that have led to abortion rights victories elsewhere. In Ohio and other states, lawmakers have sought to block or overturn attempts by voters to protect abortion rights, and anti-abortion lawmakers in several states have sought to prosecute anyone who helps a woman travel to another state to get an abortion.

In short, there is no silver bullet for reproductive rights. The judiciary is no haven, not as long as the current Supreme Court majority holds; state and lower federal courts aren’t much better, going by the Alabama I.V.F. ruling and the decisions that pushed the mifepristone case to the Supreme Court. At the same time, voter support for reproductive rights won’t make a difference if they can’t use ballot measures to make that support known.

That is why any successful strategy to protect or restore abortion rights must understand reproductive rights and representative democracy as inextricably linked.

That means understanding the stakes of the elections in November. If Mr. Trump’s party wins solid control of the House and Senate, this could put Americans’ reproductive rights at further risk. . . .

Voters will be faced with a stark choice: the choice of whether to protect not just reproductive rights, but true equality for women.

Do We Think About Our Votes Or Just Follow The Group?

Dr. Neil Gross (professor of sociology at Colby College) has written a thought-provoking article of political identity and voting. Here is part of what he wrote:

If you’re trying to guess whether people are Republicans or Democrats, knowing a few basic facts about them will take you a long way. What’s their race and gender? How far did they get in school? What part of the country do they live in and is their community urban, suburban or rural?

Between 2016 and 2020, for example, white Americans without college degrees favored the Republican Party by nearly 24 percentage points. Strike up a conversation about politics with such a person in rural central Maine, near where I live, and chances are that his or her sympathies will lie with the G.O.P.

Or consider gender and attitudes about crime and public safety: Men are about 10 percentage points more supportive than women of the death penalty and 10 percentage points less supportive of gun control. Or how about ethnicity and views on illegal immigration? Relative to Latino Americans, non-Latinos endorse“increasing deportation” as a partial solution by a 22-point margin.

Although there are certainly people whose politics defy generalization, the underlying demographic tendencies are powerful predictors of belief — powerful enough that elections have become as much a turnout game as an exercise in persuasion.

But this raises an important question. If our political views and behavior can be so easily predicted by characteristics like race (over which we have no control) or by factors like education (where our choices may be highly constrained by other things such as the social class of our parents), then when it comes to politics, are any of us really thinking for ourselves?

The accusation that people on the other side of the political divide have abandoned critical thinking and moral reasoning is now commonplace in American political discourse. Many on the left interpret the political tendencies of white voters without college educations as evidence that the Republican Party’s core constituency is ill informed or even unintelligent. Who else could fall for the lies of Donald Trump? Republicans, for their part, regularly invoke the idea of “liberal groupthink,” using it to make sense of how some of America’s ostensibly brightest minds could champion simplistic, unworkable policies like defunding the police.

These accusations form part of the broader phenomenon of partisan stereotyping, which has flourished as the country has pulled apart. Alongside the charge that those in the opposite political camp don’t think for themselves, Democrats in 2022 were considerably more likely than they were in 2016 to say that Republicans were closed-minded, dishonest and immoral. Republicans felt pretty much the same way about Democrats. . . .

It may be inevitable that our group identities, interests and experiences shape our political inclinations. But it’s up to each of us to scrutinize the beliefs we’ve absorbed from our social milieu to ensure that our values and political commitments are what we truly think they should be — that our beliefs are based on sound reasons rather than brute social forces.

Regrettably, a hyperpartisan society does little to reward such independence of thought, even as both progressives and conservatives claim its mantle. . . .

By all means, let’s duke it out in the public sphere and at the ballot box. You’ll fight for your interests and values, I’ll fight for mine. That’s democracy in a big, diverse, boisterous nation. But if we could bear in mind that we sometimes stumble into our most passionately held beliefs, the tenor of our discourse might be a bit saner and more cordial. The fact that we are all deeply social creatures, in politics and otherwise, underscores our shared humanity — something that we would be wise to never lose sight of. 

WaPo Gives 5 Ways To Restore Confidence In Voting

Most Americans think our voting system is administered and counted fairly. But thanks to Trump's claims that there was massive fraud in the 2020 election, a significant portion of voters now doubt the system. The Washington Post editorial board gives us five ways to restore confidence in voting. Here are those five ways:

Publicly test machines before Election Day.

That would include inviting the media and the public to witness the testing of voting machines before elections so citizens could see for themselves the accuracy of the machines and safeguards against tampering. State websites should also feature explanations, in plain language, of steps being taken to keep machines secure.

Enact ballot tracking measures.

Think of the process by which consumers can follow a package ordered online. Under this proposal, voters could see their ballots move through every step of the process — from when it’s sent after they have requested one to a notification it has been received. California, for example, already allows voters to sign up for a text message letting them know their vote has been counted.

Require a paper trail.

Six states still use voting machines without a voter-verified paper audit trail: Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee and Texas. This provides fodder for conspiracy theories, especially in tight races. All but Mississippi and Tennessee have passed laws to phase out these machines.

Pre-canvass early ballots to speed up counting.

Twelve states — including battlegrounds Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — haven’t allowed election officials to process mailed-in ballots before Election Day. This delays the counting and, in 2020, fueled claims by then-President Donald Trump that the election was being stolen from him because his early lead evaporated as absentee ballots were tabulated.

Automatically conduct high-quality post-election audits.

States should consider requiring counties to quickly and publicly hand-count a random sample of paper ballots to spot-check the accuracy of mechanized counting. If done routinely, that could avert bizarre third-party audits like the one conducted in Arizona by Cyber Ninjas in 2021.

We Must Raise The Voting Age To 50! (A Satire)

The following delicious bit of satire is by Alexandria Petri (pictured) in The Washington Post:

Where is the red wave I was promised? This cannot be! Something has gone wrong! These results — something is the matter with them. I would like to speak to an election manager, if one can be found.

After this disheartening news, I have been doing a great deal of soul-searching. Not my soul, which is, of course, perfect, but the souls of others. What, for instance, possessed Gen Z to put down their phones and Pokémon-Go-to-the-polls, and — worse yet — to vote for Democrats in substantial numbers when they arrived there?

There has been some mistake, clearly. And until we can get to the bottom of it, we have got to take prompt action to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Change our platform so that anything in it is appealing to young people? Learn to take the campaign to online spaces? Make inroads on TikTok? No, God forbid.

That would suggest there is something wrong with our party, and there is nothing wrong with our party. When I look at our prominent acolytes and national figureheads I see nothing but total dominance! The party is great and everyone in it is savory and not oleaginous, from Ted Cruz to Mehmet Oz to Donald Trump and — of course! — all the Mikes! What could be unappealing to young people about all the Mikes?

And our ideas?! Top-notch! Forcing people to give birth, banning library books and increasingly embracing fringe conspiracy theories — do these sound like the actions of a party that is off track? If you think that democracy is good and you like to see the results of the election before declaring a winner, I don’t know what to tell you! That’s a snowflake problem. Want student debt relief? No, you don’t. I am not moving an inch on any of these positions. You must come to me.

We already tried gerrymandering. And we will keep trying it! We already tried voter suppression of various kinds. That was good, but did not go far enough. It was not sufficiently well-targeted.

The answer is simple: We have got to raise the voting age. Twenty-one? That might not be enough, honestly. Millennials are not as conservative as they ought to be and some of them are pushing 40 now. We should consider whether we might not want it to be higher than that. Fifty feels reasonable. A good, round number.

I hear what you are saying. “You keep trying to tackle the problem from the perspective of discouraging voters! Why not, instead, modify any of your stances in a way that might encourage more people to vote for you?” I will tell you why not: because I do not want to.

Consider whom you want to trust with making decisions for the future. Shouldn’t you put your confidence in sober, levelheaded elders who, on their way out, are entirely unbiased and can look at the situation without considering their own self-interest?

Young people are the last people you want to make important choices about the future. They are not objective about it; they will be the ones living there.

Public Opposes Most Republican Policies On Voting

The charts above are from a Gallup Poll -- done between July 5th and 26th of a nationwide sample of 1,013 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Polls Can't Tell You If Your Vote Is Needed - It Always Is!

As regular readers of my blog will know, I love polls. Polls can tell us how things are moving in an election, but only in a general way. Having said that, I think there are some things that must be said about polls (especially political polls).

First, no poll will accurately predict the outcome of any election. They are just an educated guess. Some may get close, while others may be very wrong.

Second, polls base their guess on a small sample, whether a few hundred or several thousand. But an election may involve millions of voters (especially a statewide or national election).

Third, not all polls are equal. Some use poor samples or weighted questions (that will elicit a certain response). The best use adequately weighted samples and neutral questions. 

Finally, any poll (even a good one) can be wrong. Their predicted winner can lose if his/her supporters don't vote and the opponent's supporters vote in large numbers. 

This leads to my most important belief. NEVER LET A POLL DETERMINE WHETHER YOU WILL VOTE OR NOT! It doesn't matter whether the polls say your candidate is far ahead or far behind, your vote is always needed. Polls are just guesses, while votes determine who will run our government (and affect your life in many ways).

Whether you vote early, vote by mail, or vote on Election Day, please vote!

Polls may be fun and somewhat informative, but votes are far more important. Voting protects and preserves our democracy.