Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on November 2, 1970.
V-M Viewpoint
Your Vote Does Count
Are you going to let someone else make your choices of office holders Tuesday on the state, district, county and township levels? Are you going to be an Election Day Drop-Out?
Or are you going to the polls tomorrow and let your decisions known as to whom you would like to see hold office?
Your vote just could make the difference, you know. Stay away from the polls and you could help those you oppose get into office.
Is it true what they say in the newspapers, on radio and on TV? Are Indiana voters indeed apathetic towards Tuesday's General Election?
Would you be a proud resident of Porter county if less than 25 percent of the 43,000 registered voters would cast ballots here on Nov. 3? That would be a sorry affair一as was our Spring Primary when only 20 per cent of the registered voters exercised their election duty.
As a matter of record our present registration of 42,711 persons who are eligible to cast votes Tuesday has all the earmarks of apathy. They are fewer in number (by 800) from those who were eligible to vote in the Primary this Spring.
Worse yet, even though the county has grown considerably in the past two years, the current registration figure is 2,750 less than that of November 1968.
If the Republicans stay away in great numbers from the polls tomorrow, they could turn over the reins of government to the Democrats. Likewise, if the Democrats stay at home they’ll concede victory to the GOP by default.
All votes are needed in the Porter County General Election Tuesday if the people really wish to make their desires known as to whom they would like to have serve them in the respective offices which are up for grabs. If that could be accomplished it would ably show that the residents of the county really care as to who directs their government.
At this point we would repeat an earlier plea that Porter county voters not overlook the three constitutional amendment questions which appear on the upper left hand corner of their machine一above the lines of Republican and Democratic candidates.
It is important that they say “yes” or “no” to these issues. These results will have a great bearing on how these respective phases of their state government will be carried out in the years to come.
Yes, registered votes, your vote does count. But it can only count if you go to the polls Tuesday and exercise your duty as an American citizen who still has a right to make a personal choice. Don’t help us to lose that freedom. Vote Tuesday.
