Nov 2, 2015 3 min read

For many of our fellow citizens, the political signs that dot the landscape today are so much wallpaper.

The political ads they see on television or hear on the radio are so much noise, so much sound and fury signifying nothing.

Today, municipal and county elections are happening across Pennsylvania, three state Supreme Court seats are up for grabs, and, in the 37th Senatorial District, a replacement will be chosen for Matt Smith, the state senator who departed earlier this year to lead the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce.

Go beyond Pennsylvania’s borders, and you’ll find a heated race for governor in Kentucky, a referendum in Ohio on legalizing marijuana, and an assortment of measures to increase or decrease taxes.

Yet relatively few citizens will be participating in these decisions.

According to a story in today’s Observer-Reporter, somewhere around 25 percent of registered voters will cast ballots in today’s election in Washington County. It will be a slight increase from the 21 percent who voted in the primary election in May.

And keep in mind these are registered voters. There are legions of Pennsylvanians and Americans who are eligible to vote but are not registered to do so. Most estimates put their number at 50 million to 60 million. They have firmly planted themselves on the sidelines of this country’s democracy.

There are a couple of different perspectives on why so many Americans don’t vote. One view has it that Americans are fundamentally content with their lot, and would be rampaging to their polling places if they were deeply discontented, or the country were roiled by revolution. Being able to look the other way, get on with your own life and interests and not be bothered by the sausage-making of policy and politics is, in this formulation, a sign of a stable society and a democracy that is basically functioning.

This theory posits that, to paraphrase Gordon Gekko of the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” apathy is good.

The flip side of this hypothesis is that Americans have grown darkly cynical about the possibilities of politics and their leaders, their idealism having been leeched away over the last 50 years by everything from Vietnam and Watergate to garden-variety corruption, small-bore scandal, faded idealism and broken promises.

The truth, as it is in many things, is probably somewhere in the middle.

We also, in many cases, don’t make it easy for people to register or to get to the polls. How often do we hear, particularly in years when the presidency is being contested, about long lines and malfuncting machines at precincts in less well-off neighborhoods, while well-heeled suburbanites are able to cast ballots more quickly than grabbing a latte at a Starbucks drive-thru? Voter ID laws instituted in many states – thankfully cast aside in Pennsylvania by the state’s Supreme Court in 2014 – have been implemented for the purported reason of combating (nonexistent) fraud, but in reality are designed to put more hurdles in front of disfavored constituencies.

We need to make it easier to vote in this country. That’s a question our legislators must confront. But today, it’s your turn. Make your opinion count by going to vote.