If you dislike what political officeholders at the local, state and national level are doing or have done, the surest way to register your disapproval is to get out and vote on Election Day.

If you don’t take the time to exercise the privilege given to you by our constitutional form of government, then you have no valid reason to criticize any of the actions taken by any officeholder, including those elected Nov. 3.

Millions of people around the world do not have that privilege and would give anything to have that freedom of choice along with all of the other freedoms we take for granted.

There are many races on the ballot for the general election. In Jackson County, we will elect three at-large county council members, the District 2 county commissioner, a new county coroner and a school board member in Crothersville.

Jackson County residents also will help elect the Indiana House District 65 and House District 69 representatives for the next two years and will be asked to help choose the state’s governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general and the Ninth District congressman.

Many county residents have already voted through the mail-in and in-person absentee mailing process, and there is still time to vote early in person. The absentee voting sites at the Jackson County Judicial Center at 109 S. Sugar St., Brownstown, and the former Jackson Superior Court I building at 1420 Corporate Way, Seymour, are open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. today and from 8 a.m. to noon Monday.

The rest of you will have to wait until Election Day. You can rest assured that county election officials have made the in-person voting process for Election Day as safe as possible in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There’s no reason not to vote.

The ballot is the only legal way we were given by the Founding Fathers to exercise control over the way in which our towns, cities, counties, states and nation are operated. Talking about a candidate you don’t like won’t get the job done, and neither will protesting or booing candidates or even running them out of a restaurant for that matter.

There’s just one way. Show up and vote Nov. 3 — if not earlier.

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