Election Day is two weeks away but that doesn’t mean you have to wait. The old election joke, “I’m going to vote early and often” is now a true statement. Albeit you can’t vote more than once.

With all the options voters have today, there really is no excuse not to vote. There’s absentee voting, there’s early voting and, in true democratic tradition, we have Election Day voting on Tuesday, November 5 from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m.

In fact, many organizations have Election Day lunches at or near the polling places, which not only attract big crowds but are an excellent way to reward yourself for exercising your right to vote.

In last Friday’s edition, we not only ran the entire Sullivan County Ballot Reprint, we also addressed early voting as well at all the polling places you need to get to.

Your vote truly does count and we urge you to get out and cast your ballot – one way or another. The turnout for our Primary Election –which is always significantly lower than the General Election – was dismal.

According to the New York State Board of Elections, there are 48,280 active registered voters in Sullivan County with Democrats holding a slight advantage over Republicans in enrollment – 16,872 to 15,495. There are also 12,666 Blank registered voters, which means they did not choose a political party.

That’s a significant amount of votes and even during last year’s General Election, only 54.4 percent of the registered voters cast their ballot.

We think we could do better. 

And please remember, your vote does count. While the race for President will receive millions of votes across the country, we have a very competitive race for New York State Assembly, with two candidates trying to fill the vacancy left by the retiring Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther.

And there are also many town races, two village races and one local proposition to be decided in Mamakating.

There is also a very important Proposal Number One – a state-wide proposition – to be decided.

So we urge you, take the time to get out and vote.

It really does make a difference.