Why does it matter? Why should I vote in the primary?
Selection of candidates determines a party’s agenda, its character, and how it will govern. How parties conduct themselves, moreover, impacts the very nature of our democracy. If you ever wondered how that person with that set of priorities got elected to Congress, the short answer is “primaries:” those who vote at primaries decide who appears on the ticket at the general election. And those elected at the general election dictate how the state and country are governed, essentially determining our democracy’s course.
When you vote in a primary election, you empower yourself, and your community.
Midterm elections are important! It isn’t just the U.S. president who governs our country; he or she does that in coordination with the country’s two other branches: legislative and judicial. At the midterms, you decide who goes to Congress to represent your state’s interests. So you help set the country’s priorities for the next several years when you vote in both the primaries and midterm general elections.
To stay the course of our democracy, we must improve our usual 20% participation in primary elections to a vast majority, consistently. You, the voter, have that power.
Democracies are often graded by the legitimacy of their elections, and legitimacy in a democracy comes from the people governed. Not some, not a few, but all eligible citizens. We believe that Every Citizen is a Voter.
