With the advance polls opening today and the Citizen/CKPG/UNBC all-candidates forum set for tonight, it's time for all of those undecided voters - 19 per cent of adults in both Prince George ridings, according to the Citizen/CKPG poll by Oraclepoll Research - to start making up their minds.
The election is close enough, both locally and provincially, that the undecided voters hold the balance of power. How they vote will decide who will be our next MLAs and even who will be premier. If you're one of these undecided voters, congratulations. You're in a powerful position and your vote will certainly count.
But, as wise old Ben Parker informed his nephew Peter, with great power comes great responsibility. Voting is far more than a mere symbolic act of stepping into a private space, using a pencil to put an X beside a name and then casting that folded ballot into a box to be counted later. It is a small act with enormous consequences.
In that moment, when the pencil is applied to the paper, we put aside our self-interest and accept our individual commitment to each other as citizens to working together for what's best for our community, our province and our country. The act of voting is a signal that while we make up our own minds as responsible adults, we also accept the decision of our fellow residents in choosing what's best. That's easy when the candidates we vote for are elected but not so easy to take when our candidate doesn't win.
All of the losing candidates say "the voters are always right" in their concession speeches, even if they don't feel it in their hearts because if they didn't believe they were the right man or woman for the job, they wouldn't have run for office. Voters should take the same view of their ballot when their candidate isn't the popular choice.
As Jeff Probst has built a successful and lucrative television career saying, "the tribe has spoken."
But undecided voters often stay undecided and then don't turn out to vote because they can't make up their minds. Being unable to decide is no reason not to vote.
No school ever teaches students how to decide how to vote. It's supposed to be some personal revelation, arrived at after careful consideration, but that still doesn't explain how it happens.
The options are simple but numerous.
You can vote for the party that shares your principles.
You can vote for the party that has the best chance of defeating the party whose principles you strongly oppose.
You can vote for the party leader you like most.
You can ignore parties, their leaders and their principles to vote strictly for individual candidates, because you like them, because you think they're smart and ethical, because you think they'd do a great job or because you like their smile, their hair or the sound of their voice.
In other words, there is no right or wrong way to vote, there is only your way and your choice, with just your conscience and good judgment as your guide.
But going to the polling station is far more than a vote for a candidate. Regardless of their political ideology, all candidates are one in their desire to make things better, at both the individual and social level. Politics and philosophies change over time but the desire of well-meaning men and women to serve their communities remains constant.
So it is with the act of voting.
The candidates and parties come and go but what never changes is what you're really voting for when you cast your ballot.
You vote because you believe in a better future for yourself and your loved ones.
You vote because you believe good government starts with electing good people with good ideas.
You vote because you believe in the wisdom of your fellow citizens, which includes the people chosen to represent you.
You vote because you believe in democracy.
You vote because you believe in peace.
And if you're still undecided, we'll see you at 6 tonight at UNBC.
