Are you ready to cast your vote?

Published 8:26 pm Sunday, November 5, 2017

Election day is upon us.

Tomorrow is election day, and no matter where you live in the county there is a good reason to come out and vote this time around.

Between yard signs, YouTube ads and the articles and ads in this very paper, it would be hard to forget about the mayoral, city council and Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax votes that will be tabulated late in the day on Tuesday. These results of these votes will decide the future of the county for the next few years if not longer, but there will be those who don’t show up on election day nonetheless.

The most common argument that I hear for not voting is that one vote won’t make a difference, and I will give those nay sayers that if it was about just one vote, they would probably be right, but your vote plus the votes of your friends who also vote and your family members who cast their vote and — let’s go big — your church congregation, that can sway an entire election, especially a city election.

When the E-SPLOST passed in Troup County in May 2016, only 7,972 people in the entire county voted. To break that down further, 5,062 people voted for the tax.

For comparison, in the November 2016 presidential election, 11,855 Troup County citizens voted.

That sounds like a small margin until you realize that the difference between those voter turnouts could have swayed almost any Troup County election in recent years, with uncontested elections being the primary exception.

Simply put, if you want your vote to really count, vote in local elections.

If you drive, then you probably registered to vote the last time you renewed your driver’s license, but if you are not sure if you are registered to vote in Georgia, or you just want to double check where your polling location is, I recommend Mvp.sos.ga.gov/MVP/mvp.do which is run by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, and provides links to voter registration, election dates and polling locations.

If you just want to confirm the address of your voting precinct, there is a full list on A2.

If you want a quick review of who the candidates are, the results of the candidate forums can be found on the LaGrange Daily News website.

I hope to see you at the polls.