Nov 7, 2017 2 min read

Whether it’s a sign of alienation or contentment, Americans don’t vote at the same rate as their peers in the industrialized world.

According to the Pew Research Center, we’re way down the list, sandwiched between Estonia and Luxembourg. We’re doing better than Japan and Switzerland, but Iceland, Italy, Denmark, Australia and a handful of other countries have us beat running away.

Critics who decry the level of civic participation in the United States will, if history is any guide, have more ammunition for their arguments after the dawn breaks Wednesday morning and the post-mortems begin on 2017’s Election Day. Voter turnout in off-year elections tends to be small, with only a slice of the electorate deciding who will serve in municipal offices, as magisterial or common pleas judges and, across the state, who will take up posts on the Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth courts.

These are not inconsequential jobs. City and borough councils and township boards levy taxes and adopt budgets. They also help shape their communities through their approval or disapproval of development plans, whether they are shopping centers or housing plans. Think your community is glutted by traffic? Or, on the other hand, do you think businesses that could enhance your community’s tax base are being shown the door too readily? Your township board, borough council or city council is the place to register complaints.

Of course, the judges who will be on the ballot Tuesday will interpret the laws made my legislators and, on the local level, common pleas judges hear cases within the realm of family law, trusts and estates, trials for serious crimes and civil cases. Magisterial judges hear, among other things, landlord-tenant cases, summary offenses and violations of municipal ordinances.

It’s all the nuts and bolts of making laws and interpreting them. No one should be bystanders in this process. Vote today.