Today’s the day that superheated rhetoric, bombastic advertising messages and celebrity endorsements take a back seat to the one voice that matters in the United States of America:

YOURS.

It’s election day, and there’s not much more to say except that election day does something that outrages those people who consider themselves better, richer, smarter or more socially aware than the rest of us. You know the people I’m talking about- the ones who think their financial support or endorsements should be all you need to know to decide how the country should go.

It’s the day that political donors, celebrities, TV “experts” and general know-it-alls despise because their opinion doesn’t carry any more weight than yours or mine. At the ballot box, every voter has equal say in the governance of our nation.

That’s why every vote is crucial.

And I want you to vote, even if you disagree with my choice of candidates. Sure, I’d like them to win, but voting, regardless of your choices, is important. So important that there in many places around the world people risk disfigurement or death just to vote.

Today, we don’t visit libraries for answers, we “Google” or ask Alexa. We shop online for books, movies and virtually anything else imaginable (as long as it doesn’t go “bang”) at Amazon. We bank by phone, have GrubHub deliver rather than go to a restaurant. We can order online and have groceries brought to our car if you don’t want to bother with going inside. It’s a world of absentee convenience.

Voting, on the other hand, requires effort. To vote today, you’ll have to show up.

Early voters in Tennessee had the opportunity to exhort others to get out and vote today. The stickers seemingly encouraged others, because the early voting has been described as historically high.

Google, Alexa, Amazon, or GrubHub can’t do it for you. Casting your ballot requires your presence- and that means getting to the polling place, standing in line, and physically making your preferences known.

If it weren’t important, there wouldn’t be provisions for you to cast your ballot even if you weren’t going to available today.

Absentee ballots and early voting don’t exist to make your life easier. They exist because the right to vote is what separates a citizen from a subject.

That’s no exaggeration. Superheated rhetoric and rah-rah cheerleading aside, the right to vote is the one thing that still equalizes us all.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on political campaigns - and every penny was spent to convince you to cast your vote for that particular candidate.

You may be fed up with the name-calling, overheated rhetoric or bloviation of an endless trouping of experts across your TV screens.

But you should also realize that your vote is all that separates them from trying to influence you from their dictating your choices.

That’s why I vote.

There’s no guarantee that my choices will win, but it’s a certainty that my not participating puts the people who want to dictate my choices one step closer to being able to do just that.

Vote. It. Is. Important.

—Jim Shepherd