Your last opportunity to vote is Election Day Tuesday November 8, with polls open from 6:30am until 7:30pm. If you’re in line at 7:30pm, they must let you vote. Don’t hesitate or second-guess whether it matters. It does. Just go.
This isn’t about partisan politics or whether Democrats or Republicans have better ideas. It’s about whether we want to restore democracy and the voice of citizens in Ohio. As an article in the New Yorker a few months ago suggested, Ohio is no longer a functioning democracy. Four decades of gerrymandering have given us a GOP-controlled legislature with no responsiveness to their constituents, only to a radical agenda they can confidently enact knowing we can’t do much about it. Yes, this is cause for discouragement and feeling like voting doesn’t matter. But no it’s not an excuse for not showing up.
And that radical agenda rips the veil off the lies Republicans are telling voters: the (supposed) “issues” they’re running on: “the economy” and “crime.” In fact their legislative agenda is anti-economy and pro-crime. In trying to ban abortion, they’re driving child and family poverty to desperation levels. And in loosening gun laws, they’re doing the #1 thing that drives crime.
The real contest is between two visions: a GOP agenda based on taking away rights of women & LGBTQ+ people while flooding the streets with guns, and the Democrats’ vision of focusing on better-paying jobs, stronger public schools and wider access to health care.