Election Day 101
Is your phone full of campaign texts and unknown callers? That must mean it’s election season! We know how annoying constant promotions can be but there are few things as important as making your voice is heard! Your voice is guaranteed to be heard by voting in not just the primaries but the midterms, too!
Election Day in North Carolina is on November 8 and checking to confirm you are registered to vote is far easier than buying a house! To confirm you are registered to vote and to check your voting location, head over to https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup/ and simply input all the requesting information.
In this midterm, you will be selecting candidates for one US Senate seat, 14 US House seats, offices for the General Assembly, NC Supreme Court and the NC Court of Appeals, as well as local judges, prosecutors, county sheriffs, and commissioners.
Every state gets two seats in the US Senate and the terms last for six years. Whereas members of the House of Representatives reflect congressional districts, the two senators represent the entirety of North Carolina in The Senate. The election of US senators is staggered so only one third of the Senate is being voted on right now across the country. This staggering means that your candidate may be working with senator who have two, four, or six years left of their term. It sounds confusing but it allows for more autonomy in the voices of voters – so you have to make sure to use yours! Because there are fewer members in the Senate, the rules are not as strict as those of the House. The Senate majority and minority work in accordance with each other to decide what the schedule entails, meaning what bills are being heard and debated on. The House of Representatives’ debate is very limited, as there are 435 of them! The members of the House elect a Speaker of the House to serve as the political leader of the House. The Senate debate is almost unlimited on the Senate floor and I imagine could get fairly exciting! The Senate relies on tradition and precedent, unlike the House. Senate candidates must be 30 years old and are expected to be a little more experienced and less influenced by the shifts in opinions, hence the longer terms.
If you recall a little scroll sitting on the steps of the Capitol building, you may recall how a bill becomes a law. If you do not, I recommend you YouTube it – it is a classic. Bills must first pass the House of Representatives (after being sponsored by a representative and assigned to and released by a committee) with a simple majority – 218 of those 235 votes. If passed, it moves to the Senate, where the bill is assigned to another committee to be studied and potentially released for a vote. Once the bill is released for voting, the Senate debates and votes on the proposed law. A simple majority, 51 out of 100, wins here, too. Yet another meeting of those elected minds happens if both houses of Congress approve a bill; representatives from both houses meet and compare notes on the differences between the House of Representatives’ version of the bill and the Senate’s version of the bill. What comes from that meeting is then returned to the House and the Senate for final approval, another vote. If it is finally approved by both houses, it’s off to the President!
It can be hard to see your voice in this process, especially knowing there are so many more complex nuances to the process I just laid out, however, you can guarantee your voice is not heard if you choose not to use it. When you vote, you add one more tally behind the candidate that you believe represents the ideals you have for our city, county, state, and country.
On the state level, the House of Representatives and the Senate make up the General Assembly. In North Carolina, all representatives are elected by the voters in their districts. We expect our government to provide education, health, safety, transportation, and other goods and services. As is on the federal level, the representatives elected into the General Assembly are making decisions that affect your daily life at a local level.
The judicial branch is another key component of this election. In selecting judges and prosecutors, you decide how the laws are going to be evaluated and executed. At the Supreme and appellate level, cases are evaluated after already having been decided by a lower court. Terms for a justice on the NC Supreme Court and in the NC Court of Appeals serve eight-year terms. There are seven associate justices on the Supreme Court including the Chief Justice and the buck stops with them; there are no further appeals after a decision is made by the Supreme Court. There are currently 15 justices on North Carolina’s appellate court, and they hear cases as panels of three. Neither of these courts decide facts, only whether the law was correctly interpreted. As important as these courts are, the district and superior courts feed into them so being informed of who you select to serve those seats means there could be less or more cases overturned, either crowding the courts or assuring justice remains the focus of the courtroom.
Prosecutors play a significant role in the courtroom, as well, as they are the state’s representation in criminal matters. Prosecutors, also known as District Attorneys, oversee the entire legal team charging crimes. They supervise attorneys, legal assistants, and investigators as they proceed with criminal trials. There is only one district attorney for each North Carolina district so your vote here determines how your district will react to criminal matters.
Lastly, this election day you will be choosing a county sheriff and commissioner. The sheriff ‘s role exists under the executive branch, operated by the governor. The sheriff establishes education and training standards for officers, designates what positions require specialized trainings, and conducts research on internal and external data. The sheriff is a major role in how the police force interacts with the public and is not a decision that should be left in the hands of everyone but you. County commissioners adopt the annual budget for the county, establish the tax rate, and appoint various officials for the county.
Local officers include positions like Soil and Water Conservation Board and School Board positions – these roles involve hiring county-paid personnel and drafting plans to improve quality of life in the district it serves.
If you have made it this far into the article, I hope you see that the “smaller” the position, the more impact it actually has on your day-to-day which is why the midterms are so incredibly important. The decisions you have the opportunity to make will impact what bills are heard and potentially passed, how the courts respond to changes in societal opinions, and how the government officials respond to daily matters, like the maintenance of roads and how much you pay in state taxes and where that money goes.
We hope you feel empowered and encouraged to use your voice this election season! Below is a link to research all the candidates on the ballot this year so you may be well-researched and confident in who you choose to make decisions for our home. May the line at your voting location not be too long and your “I Voted” sticker not fall off – from all of us at Atlas Orange, thank you for using your voice and happy Election Day!
