The impact local elections can make

By Paige Winters (pwinter6@jccc.edu). Winters is a video producer for The Campus Ledger. This is her second semester at the college. She enjoys covering stories and events on campus through videography. She spends most of her time at local concerts, out with friends or with her dog.

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With the chaos of this presidential election, some voters have forgotten where else their voice truly matters, and that’s local elections.

(Kat Hooley-Lickteig) “Local elections are probably the most important elections on your ballot. Local elections, what we call down ballot races are the races that are actually going to affect your day-to-day life.”

(Kate Boyer) “You’re voting for someone who will affect you directly, someone you can influence directly as well.” 

Local elections not only have a large impact on passing laws and regulations but on the community as a whole. 

(Hooley-Lickteig) “They affect almost everything they can affect whether our state is prepared to handle coronavirus surges, they can affect whether or not our state receives the appropriate funding for our schools, for our public services, they can harshly set what someone’s tax rates look like because some of our tax rate comes from the state level and even your local level, your board county commissioners decide whether or not we follow mask mandates, you know, all of these things we’ve seen in the past few months shows how important these local races are.” 

While local elections of course effect our communities, voting can allow your voting to be heard nationally as well.

(Boyer) “When you put thing son the ballot you could be setting a precedent for national issues. For example, in California right now, they’re going to vote on whether to give benefits to Uber drivers or not and that will set a precedent for the rest of the U.S.

(Hooley-Lickteig) “Local election results tell pollsters on the national level the political leanings of an area. For example, Kansas for the first time in a while is considered purple.

Even if you feel like your voice won’t sway a large election like the presidential one, every vote matters and will continue to change the political landscape. 

(Hooley-Lickteig) “We’ve seen more young voter turnout this cycle than any time in recent history because our generation that can make the change, the changes our generation wants to see, so let’s make them.” 

Reporting from The Campus Ledger, this has been Paige Winters.

 

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