Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 4.
A lot is asked of American voters. If they are to fulfill their civic duty conscientiously, they may take part in as many as two elections a year — primary and general — and they must vote year after year. It is no wonder that voter fatigue can set in when the result seems preordained, the contest appears unimportant or the choices seem under-whelming.
To those seeking an excuse to stay home, those conditions may all seem to apply in today’s general election. Here’s why they don’t.
While the next most important thing to a presidential election is a state gubernatorial race, Republican incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett has been trailing for weeks in the polls to his Democratic challenger, Tom Wolf. To some the result may seem a foregone conclusion. Not so fast.
Political polling has improved, but it has not advanced to the level of perfection that upsets are obsolete. Take some rain in Philadelphia, add a touch of complacency, stir in some late uncharted shift in sentiment and Pennsylvania could have its own “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment.
To be sure, the principals in the Pennsylvania governor’s race are not particularly appealing, which is why this newspaper declined to endorse one of them. But each party has an incentive to maximize its vote. The only poll worth anything is at the ballot box today.
There’s another temptation to be fought. Because the nation faces the prospect of a major realignment in Congress, with the Republicans hoping to take control of the Senate, this fateful midterm election may seem remote to Pennsylvania, which has no Senate seat this year up for grabs.
But the political pulse of Pennsylvania voters can be expressed in various ways — in the contested House campaigns for Congress as well as the governor’s race and for seats in the state Legislature.
If you do not vote today, others will decide the direction of your state and your nation. Vote today because you can make a difference.
