Voting is your opportunity to exercise control over your own future – and your children's.
The presidential campaign of 2016 may not go down in history as the nastiest - our Founding Fathers and their followers didn't pull any punches, either - but it certainly qualifies as one of the ugliest and the most anxiety-producing.
Who isn't ready for this slime-fest to be over?
But however distasteful the past year has been, don't let it keep you from exercising your most precious right as a citizen.
That's not just some jingoistic rhetoric. Voting is your opportunity to exercise control over your own future - and your children's. It's the most powerful item in your tool kit as a citizen. To waste it would be sin.
And despite much-publicized claims by Donald Trump that the system is rigged, examinations turned up 31 instances of voter fraud between 2000 and 2014 - out of 1 billion ballots cast.
You're as likely to be struck by lightning as to be involved in fraudulent voter practices, says the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
There's too much at stake to stay home on Election Day.
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We're talking about the quality of our air and water. The direction of our justice system. The nature of our economy. The question over who controls women's bodies. Not to mention the composition of our highest court.
You know - small stuff like that.
Besides choosing who gets to recite the Oath of Office come January 20, New Jersey voters have a lot on their plates.
Besides electing our representatives to Congress, we're considering two important ballot questions: whether to amend the state Constitution to allow casino gambling outside of Atlantic City, and whether to amend the Constitution to dedicate every penny of annual gas tax revenue to replenish the Transportation Tax Fund.
Each question speaks in its own way to quality of life in the Garden State, and each sends a message to our leaders as to how you think the state's resources should be spent.
Also on the ballot are municipal and county positions: mayors, council members, freeholders, sheriffs. The people you put into office by means of your vote will have a concrete effect on the way you live your life.
It's that simple - and that profound.
This is the part in any self-respecting get-out-the-vote editorial where we usually say how many brave people fought for your right to cast a ballot, how disrespectful and ignorant it is to throw away your shot.
But we're only going to advise you to get out and vote as though your life depended on it. Because, you know, it really does.
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