Who are you voting for in your municipal and/or state elections in November? Yes, this year. Do you know there are races?
Federal elections are incredibly important, but on a day-to-day basis, city and state elections will affect you just as much, if not more.
Here in Seattle, for instance, seven of our nine city council members are up for reelection, and the outcome will determine how $6 billion gets spent every year. It will help determine whether Seattle can keep pace with its huge influx of tech workers. It will determine whether housing affordability gets addressed.
And not that many people are really aware of these elections. Even fewer are aware of the primary that will determine who's on our November ballot.
So, if you've made a plan to be a voter in your forthcoming municipal elections, then bravo—I'm incredibly happy to hear it. And now get to work making sure that your friends and family members have up-to-date voter registration information on file, and that they have plans to be voters, too.
That's because people just vote once every few years on election day.
Vigilance includes actively following politics (not just the sensational BS headlines in TV news and newspapers, but the real deal), marching and demonstrating when needed, participating in your preferred party and making sure the right people get its nomination, and so on.
Don't just "write your congressman" about issues, for they could not care less. Write online, influence others, organize, and make them care (whatever your politics, this is just so the politics are closer to what people want, not so that the politics are "the right politics", which doesn't exist).
i.e., y’all need to vote.