Exercise your right to vote or risk freedoms

May 10—Excuses are a dime a dozen, some real, some imagined, some made from whole cloth.

People will say they were too busy to vote or had a scheduling conflict. Somebody was sick or feeling a little under the weather or was just not up to getting up and out. Couldn't get a ride to the polls, they'll say. Didn't know where to vote, others will admit. Or, a terrible excuse, did not know when to vote.

Often heard: "My vote won't make a difference."

Poppycock. All of it.

And to think that courageous American soldiers risked their lives in fighting and winning wars against the nefarious designs of tyrannical despots across generations, to preserve our freedoms and our constitutional rights to have our say, to go to church, to assemble with our friends and to protest.

To vote.

All of those excuses, of course, contribute to a decline in respect and high regard of our democracy where participation is key to keeping a government of the people, by the people and for the people well oiled and working.

As you may have heard, there are troublemakers planning and scheming, self-serving authoritarians who would like nothing better than to blow it all up, reduce the Constitution to an ash pile and take your vote away. Think not? On Jan. 6, 2021, 121 members of the House — Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., among them — voted to deny accepting election results from Arizona, and then 138 voted — joined by Miller and Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va. — to toss the results from Pennsylvania. To be clear, they were voting to nullify the votes and voices of millions of Americans.

Not that West Virginians are short of opinions on the state of affairs, but they do lack a track record of showing up in great numbers on election day to cast a ballot. Given what we know about all that needs to be addressed and improved for the general welfare of its people, from education to health care to the economy to how we care for our most vulnerable citizens, this dismissive attitude toward participatory government is a sad commentary on our citizenship.

The record shows that rarely does the state turn out more than half of its registered voters to cast a ballot in a general election, fewer in a midyear contest and barely a small crowd in a primary like what we have coming up next week.

Perhaps a ballot packed with 17 candidates for Raleigh County magistrate across four different contested divisions alone will make a difference.

Perhaps the municipal election in Beckley, where a general unease with how the city is being run could lead to a house cleaning, maybe that will spark a bigger than normal turnout.

We hear a lot of talk, but until a surge in voting manifests itself at the polls, then it is just that, idle chatter that leads to a little of nothing.

We find it odd that citizens need to be motivated to go to the polls. Seems like exercising the promise and privilege of voting, of strengthening democracy via participation, would be enough for any patriot to head to the polls come election day.

Yes, we encourage you to vote. No excuses.