Polk power has gone up for grabs again, and if you’re smart, you’ll lunge for it. Four seats have opened on the Polk County Board of Education, which supervises and administers the free public school system. The sheriff, clerk of court and three county commissioner seats have come up for re-election as well. Candidates have from now until Feb. 28 to register at the county Board of Elections office in the Womack Building in Columbus.

Why aren’t you running for office, if you have strong opinions about how things ought to go in this county? If you advocate for effective education, why don’t you put yourself in a position of tangible power, so that you can be the change you want to see here?

These elections will affect the daily lives of everyone in Polk County. It isn’t enough to cast a vote in this election. Instead, get out and run for office or support someone whose views reflect your own.

Most folks know that women got the right to vote in 1920, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 allowed an end to racially discriminatory voting laws. Not as many people know that poor people were the last to lift barriers to voting. When this land became the United States of America, owning 50 acres of land was a requirement for choosing who would run the country. The land couldn’t be owned by mutual consent or long-term use, so tribal people were out of luck. It had to be owned through the filing and property policies put in place by landowners who benefit from making those laws.

John Stuart Mill, philosopher and civil servant, proclaimed: “Bad men need do nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men shall look on and do nothing.”

Local elections present an opportunity to make a true and lasting difference to neighbors, loved ones, and friends, as the everyday decisions influence a community’s development and well-being.

As Rabbi Hillel stated, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

A kind and gentle scholar and a woodcutter by trade, Hillel could not always afford the fee for studying, and the fee eventually was eliminated, as the poll tax has been.

Not all of us can be John Stuart Mill or Rabbi Hillel, but we can be our own best selves. Every vote makes a difference.

The strength and courage it takes to stand up for beliefs and endure the daily grind of meetings may not live within you, but find someone you can support and harness some of that Polk power. You can make a difference. If not you, who? If not now, when?

– Editorial staff,
Tryon Daily Bulletin