The Importance of Voting in Utah's Primaries
According to campaign strategists, “all politics are local,” meaning voters truly care about politics when politics affect their daily life. However, though most people can easily name the President of the United States and maybe even a few federal senators, they likely cannot name a local politician. The importance of local-level decisionmakers can be drastically undervalued.
Too often, citizens only pay attention to federal races, and in particular the presidential race every four years. Midterm elections often cause a 10-20% decrease in turnout compared to presidential elections. And that’s on top of the fact that the United States has some of the lowest voter turnout in any republic or democracy.
Decisions made by county commissioners, legislators, mayors, city councils and governors impact daily lives much more than federal decisions. Schools, transportation, local businesses and restaurants, and taxes taken from your paycheck are much more likely to be influenced and changed by local politicians than the President and Congress. Likewise, corruption issues are not restricted to Washington, D.C., giving birth to the evolving idiom that “all fraud is local.”
In Utah, the primary elections are June 26th. Female voters today are only a few generations removed from women who could not vote. Because Utah is the first place where women voted in the modern nation, the Utah Bee will push for our female turnout to be above average. On June 26th, every resident in Utah has the opportunity to influence his/her own future by voting in the primary election. By earning that “I Voted” sticker, Utahns will exercise a right that millions of people in the world still do not have.