Election Day November 4, 2025, will mark my sixtieth anniversary as a registered USA voter. I have a perfect record, having cast my ballot in every election over those six decades, from presidential to school levies. Nonetheless, it’s not getting any easier. 

I came of legal age (in those days, twenty-one) in 1965. That year President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, part of the Civil Rights Movement. It was a significant achievement, meant to eliminate restrictions on who can vote. Even so, the act of voting can feel like a feat of survival. First we have to endure weeks, months, of political campaigns that have become increasingly hostile and decreasingly informative.

Election 2025 is all about local positions — mayor, city council, school board, etc. In my mind, these are the most important. Even though I moved to Seattle two years ago, I got a phone call from Cindy Gagne, longtime mayor of Omak, Washington (population around 5,000), the small town where I previously lived for forty years.  Cindy was appointed mayor to fill a vacancy in 2008. After being re-elected unopposed four times, she’s running again, for the first time with opposition. Would I endorse her, she asked. Happy to! Not that it’ll mean much.

Cindy and I first met when I was on the city Parks Commission, and she was a soccer mom, volunteering long hours to raise money for decent fields. From there she moved on to the city council, ultimately the mayor’s office. Her service to the community has been even-handed and selfless.

My endorsement may not be much help because my tiny corner of the blogosphere is followed by only a few of her constituents. But the problems she and I face — as candidate and as voter — are universal. Many citizens fear that our nation’s progress toward full democracy has shifted into reverse. How does Cindy reach a fragmented, polarized citizenry that relies overly much on social media, replete with falsehoods? How do I, just one voter, sort through the propaganda and well-financed smear attacks to make an intelligent choice?

I miss my days as a news reporter, when I interviewed candidates personally. I tried my best to write objectively while inwardly concluding how I’d vote. There’s no more significant way to size up a candidate than to meet them in person. I’ve been attending voter forums for the past couple weeks and will continue until the election. That puts me in the minority. Cindy had called after a voters’ forum drew a disappointingly paltry turnout.

Well, if the voters won’t come to you, the candidate’s next-best choice is door-belling. I door-belled on behalf of a school levy many years ago. It was exhausting, discouraging, and I swore I’d never do it again. I’ve kept that promise. Sometimes it’s easier to follow Jesus’ commandment to love my neighbor when I’ve not MET my neighbor. The New York Times carried a story last week about a Democrat in Texas who walked the 25-mile length of  his Republican-leaning legislative district. He ended up in hospital, exhausted, but won the election.

“Endorsements matter to me,” a neighbor observed as we were riding the elevator after a voters’ forum. I agree, if you know that the person or organization making the endorsement shares your viewpoints and values. 

My late husband, with whom I owned and published a weekly newspaper, scoffed at so-called “endorsements” by small papers like ours. “It’s only one person’s opinion,” he’d say. Instead, he published a pre-election column called “One Man’s Vote,” listing his choices and reasoning. People appreciated it. Some trusted John and followed his recommendations. Others knew that if John was for something, they were automatically agin-it. Helpful in both directions. 

Maybe the good news is that Cindy has an opponent. Too often non-opposition reflects a lack of interest or participation from the electorate. That’s not healthy, not if we really believe in democracy. A survey by the Washington League of Women Voters a couple years ago recorded a distressing lack of candidates for local offices. Incumbents (not Cindy) can get to feeling entitled. 

Here in Seattle, the top-two primary election was a shocker. The seemingly shoo-in incumbent tallied a weak second behind an upstart, a previously unknown challenger. I’m still undecided. I’m attending every forum I can, both in-person and on-line. Big money is being spent and the race is getting heated. I don’t watch TV, so I can ignore the ads. But my mailbox will be filled with glossy, printed B.S. 

You can’t get away from it. Navigating political campaigns is like slogging through the swamp in an effort to reach high ground. This is no time for despair, but determination. These final pre-election weeks are when we put on our hip boots, study our options, and examine the facts — the “true” facts, not “alternative” facts. We’re heading for the high ground of democracy, insisting on a government that is of and for us, the people.