Today is Election Day.

It has meant a lot of things to me over the years. But this year I’m hoping it’s the day the onslaught of unwanted text messages, robot-calls and other intrusions from politicians and political parties will stop.

But it’s an occasion far more important than the end of intrusive pleas for money.

Today’s the national day of equalization.

OK, I made that up, but there’s a stronger case to be made here than many others we’ve designated federal holidays.

Election day really is the day when every citizen is equal. Money, status, followers or whatever mean diddly squat in the voting booth.

Your vote is equal to mine, and mine is equal to everyone else’s. Billionaires, celebrities, politicians and “influencers” want to sway all of us to listen to their opinion on candidates. Because they know that every vote counts. Mine can cancel theirs the same way yours could either cancel, or boost, either.

Unfortunately, it’s also the day that shows our divisions more clearly than most. It’s only when you get within the mandated distance where “no campaigning allowed” signs are enforced that you are (finally) free of the incessant fake smiles, semi-sincere smiles or outright scowls of campaign workers.

That’s because the only opinion that matters in the voting booth is yours.

My first election was in the 1960s, and even in those tumultuous times, I don’t remember the national guard being called out to protect voting places. It’s happening today -and is a sad commentary on how far civil discourse has fallen in this country.

Behaviors like those used to be limited to the third world countries. As a young man, I covered elections where the mere act of voting could cost someone their life. Today, I know far better how those long-ago voters felt.

But I learned something important watching people risk their lives to vote: voting matters- probably far more than most of us realize.

Many of our fellow citizens can’t be bothered to vote if it’s too-hot, too-cold, too-rainy, too crowded, too-whatever.

They don’t realize that people, real, live, flesh-and-blood people, died to give them the right to ho-hum the supreme act of citizenship.

They’ve never lived in a place where voting could mean your life.

And they take voting for granted. Because they’ve never had to sacrifice for things they take for granted.

I’ve written this before, but I believe it’s worth repeating: if you don’t exercise the right, you forfeit the right to an opinion about the election’s outcome- or the subsequent direction of the country. You had your chance -and you blew it.

This election, I’ve gotten the feeling that something is different for far more people this time. The impression that just maybe some have realized that voting means they want a say about what happens in their country.

Early balloting numbers indicate that nearly half of the total votes cast in the 2020 elections (a total of 154.6 million) have already been cast. In Georgia, more than four million have already voted- nearly eighty percent of the 2020 turnout. North Carolina and other states report equally impressive voting turnouts. I voted early and waited almost as long to vote as I did on election day in the last presidential elections.

A heavy turnout a good sign for democracy, provided it means we’re all agreeing to participate in the process, not declare “my candidate or else.”

Elections aren’t supposed to be just about winning, they’re supposed to be the citizenry telling a candidate we believe they’re best qualified to do the job they’ve been campaigning for. It’s also when and how we remind them we have the power to remove them if they fail to perform.

There are also important measures on plenty of state ballots this year, from Florida’s Amendment 2 that would enshrine the right of Floridians to hunt and fish within their state” to a pair of hotly-contested initiatives in Colorado: Prop KK would levy a 6.5 percent excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition; Prop. 127 would ban the hunting of mountain lions in the state.

I’m not ever going to tell you how to vote. But I won’t hesitate to remind you that you should.

As the results come in, we’ll keep you posted.

— Jim Shepherd