So, tomorrow, Tuesday, is election day in America. Here’s where I make use of my little pulpit to encourage everyone within reach of my electronic voice to make the effort to get out to your polling place and vote.

Sure, it’s an off-year election, and unless you happen to be in one of two states in the Union electing a Governor, you’re pretty much looking at strictly local offices. You might be hesitant, thinking those aren’t important.

You’d be wrong about that.

Local government officials have a heck of a lot of influence on your day-to-day life, even if it’s not readily apparent. Local officals have a lot of say in things like property taxes and local school policies. If, $diety forbid, you find yourself appearing in a court of law, the judge (who is elected in many jurisdictions) has quite a bit of say in how things go for you. So, making an effort and doing a little reading about who’s on the ballot makes a lot of sense, even if it’s just someone running for dogcatcher (especially if you’re a dog owner).

If you’re in Virginia (like I am), or in New Jersey (where I have at least a couple of friends who might read this), you’re electing a Governor, which is a big deal. I can’t speak much to the New Jersey race, except that I’ve heard of Chris Christie because of his national profile, and, he seems like a decent enough guy, for a Republican – this isn’t an endorsement, by any stretch, I just haven’t done my research – I encourage you, if you’re in the Garden State, to take a look at all candidates.

For my fellow Virginians, I can’t stress enough the importance of getting out and voting – I heartily recommend voting for Terry McAuliffe, not because he’s a particularly great candidate in my eyes (though I suspect he’ll do well enough on the issues I care about, and certainly won’t erode things further), but rather because his opponent, Ken Cuccinelli is so awful in all sorts of ways. As the Commonwealth’s Attorney General for the last four years, he’s been awful, particularly on women’s issues, and kind of a theocratic fascist (and that’s not that much of an exaggeration – dude’s made banning sodomy a major campaign issue), and there’s no indication that he’d moderate his positions any as Governor.

So, that’s pretty much my spiel – go out and vote. If you don’t know where, clicking here would be a good place to start.