craigdailypress.com

With early voting under way, Moffat County residents who are registered to vote don't have any reason not to cast their ballots on the important issues facing this area and this state.

Too many times, elections that don't include a presidential race or a hotly contested race between two candidates go ignored by the voters.

They seem to think that the issues that they are concerned with don't need their support or their opposition so they sit back and choose not to go to the polls.

"Surely my neighbors think just the way I do so why do I need to go vote?" the inert elector thinks while watching a sitcom rerun as the clock moves closer to 7 p.m. on Election Day.

That's probably how more than a few potential voters felt last April when the city asked if residents wanted to put sidewalks on routes school.

Those who wanted those sidewalks but couldn't find the motivation to vote -- and with only a 10 percent turnout there were plenty -- woke up in shock and awe when the vote turned out to be against them.

So many elections have been won or lost by a single vote. Thomas Jefferson won the presidency over Aaron Burr when the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. John Quincy Adams became president in a deadlock between himself and Andrew Jackson in 1824. Andrew Johnson was saved from impeachment by one vote.

Wouldn't it be amazing if the water rights issue or the gambling machines issue was won or lost by a single vote? And if you don't think a future city rec center rests in the chad hole of every ballot, you'd better think again.

So take advantage of early voting and urge your friends and neighbors to do so too because you don't want to be thinking "what if" on the morning after.

But be sure to bring you're proper identification because your going to need it no matter how well you know the county clerk.