9-16-2026 10:22am

From Public Agenda: September 15 2026

John Williams Editor

By Dr Shellie M Bowman

Editor, Public Agenda

For generations, Americans have spoken about “Election Day” as though democracy waits for us on one Tuesday in November.

It does not.

This week, voters in Virginia begin another election season. In-person early voting for Virginia’s November 3 general election begins Friday, September 18, and continues through October 31 (Virginia Department of Elections, 2026). That calendar invites us to reconsider the language we use about voting.

Election Day is not simply your opportunity to vote. It is your last day to have your vote counted in that election.

That distinction warrants attention because voting is not merely an event. It is one of the mechanisms through which citizens determine who will exercise governmental authority on their behalf.

And there is more time to exercise that authority than many of us have been conditioned to believe.

The Distance Between Registration and Participation

Americans register to vote at substantially higher rates than they actually vote.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 174 million Americans, or 73.6% of the citizen voting-age population, were registered for the 2024 presidential election. About 154 million, or 65.3%, reported voting (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025).

That difference represents roughly 20 million citizens between registration and reported participation.

And 2024 was a presidential election, when turnout is generally comparatively high. Pew Research Center’s examination of validated voters found that only 41% of eligible adult citizens voted in all three national elections from 2020 through 2024, while 26% participated in none of them (Hartig et al., 2025).

The participation gap is not distributed evenly.

The Census Bureau reported that 66.9% of women voted in 2024, compared with 63.7% of men. Educational differences were considerably larger: turnout reached 82.5% among citizens with advanced degrees and 77.2% among those with bachelor’s degrees, compared with 52.5% among high-school graduates (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025).

Age produces another persistent divide. Pew found that among citizens old enough to participate in the three national elections from 2020 through 2024, 63% of those 65 and older voted in all three. Among young adults, only 16% did so, while 41% participated in none (Hartig et al., 2025).

Race and ethnicity also remain associated with substantial differences in participation, according to Census voting data. These disparities deserve attention not because one group’s voice should outweigh another’s, but because representative government works best when the electorate resembles the public government is expected to serve.

Participation Is Bigger Than Party

There is a temptation to interpret nearly every discussion of voting through partisan competition.

The electorate is more complicated than that.

Pew Research Center found that registered voters were almost evenly divided heading into the 2024 election: 49% identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party and 48% identified with or leaned Republican. Roughly one-third identified initially as independent or something else before partisan leaning was considered (Pew Research Center, 2024).

Among 2024 validated voters, partisan loyalty was high. Yet among independents, the presidential vote divided evenly, 48% to 48% between the two major-party candidates (Hartig et al., 2025).

The lesson is not that party is irrelevant. Political parties organize ideas, recruit candidates, mobilize voters, and provide meaningful choices.

The larger point is that the authority being exercised does not belong to a party.

It belongs to the people.

Local Government Is Where Government Comes Home

National elections understandably command attention. Presidents, senators, and members of Congress make decisions of enormous consequence.

But government does not become less consequential as it gets closer to home.

In many respects, it becomes more immediate.

Your local school board helps determine the direction of the schools your children attend. Local governing bodies adopt budgets and establish many local tax rates. Local officials make decisions affecting land use, infrastructure, public safety, economic development, and the delivery of public services. Constitutional and other local officers administer functions that can directly reach households and businesses.

A national policy can dominate television for weeks while a local decision quietly changes what a household pays, what gets built near a neighborhood, how a small business interacts with government, or what services a community can sustain.

That is why the bottom of the ballot is not the bottom of democracy.

Local races warrant serious examination precisely because local government is so close to everyday life.

Who is seeking the office?

What authority does that office actually possess?

What has the candidate demonstrated?

What does the candidate propose?

Are those promises within the legal authority of the position?

And perhaps most importantly: What kind of government do you want serving you after the election is over?

Those questions deserve attention whether the candidate has a party designation, no party designation, or is seeking an office traditionally overshadowed by races higher on the ballot.

Your Vote Is a Statement About Government

Voting does not guarantee that your preferred candidate will win.

It does something more fundamental.

It records your participation in deciding who may exercise public authority.

If you believe government should be more transparent, voting allows you to examine candidates through that standard.

If you value fiscal stewardship, administrative competence, public safety, education, economic opportunity, affordability, individual liberty, responsive government, or some combination of them, the ballot provides an opportunity to evaluate those seeking authority against your expectations.

You need not agree with your neighbor.

Democracy does not require uniformity.

It requires participation.

And that brings us to something deeper than an election calendar.

Who Owns the Government?

The answer is remarkably clear in Virginia.

Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution of Virginia states:

“All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.”

It goes further. Public officials are described as the people’s “trustees and servants” who remain accountable to them (Constitution of Virginia, art. I, § 2).

That principle predates our present political parties. The Declaration of Independence similarly grounds legitimate governmental power in the “consent of the governed” (National Archives, 1776).

Those words answer an important contemporary question.

Government does not belong to Republicans.

Government does not belong to Democrats.

Government does not belong to elected officials.

Government belongs to the people from whom its legitimate authority is derived.

All of them.

Political victories determine who temporarily receives authority to govern. They do not transfer ownership of government away from the citizenry.

That distinction is essential to good public administration.

Voting and Good Government

Good government requires competent institutions, ethical leadership, sound administration, transparency, accountability, and stewardship.

But there is another ingredient that government cannot manufacture for itself:

an engaged public.

Elections create an accountability mechanism between those who exercise governmental authority and those from whom that authority originates. Voting alone cannot guarantee good government. But healthy representative government becomes considerably harder to sustain when citizens withdraw from choosing, examining, questioning, and holding accountable the people entrusted with public power.

So perhaps we should stop treating November 3 as the beginning.

In Virginia, the opportunity begins September 18.

Learn what is on your ballot. Examine the offices, not merely the names. Understand what those offices actually do. Read candidates’ records and proposals. Ask questions. Verify claims. Pay attention to the races at the bottom of the ballot as carefully as those at the top.

Then vote when the opportunity works for you.

Because Election Day is not the first day your voice can be heard.

It is the last.

And long after the campaign signs disappear, the government we collectively chose will remain.

The question is not simply whether government heard from Republicans or Democrats.

The question is whether it heard from the people.

References

Constitution of Virginia. (1971). art. I, §§ 2–3. Constitution of Virginia, Article I

Hartig, H., Keeter, S., Daniller, A., & Green, T. V. (2025, June 26). Voter turnout in the 2020 and 2024 elections: A detailed analysis. Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center analysis

National Archives. (1776). Declaration of Independence: A transcription. Declaration of Independence

Pew Research Center. (2024, April 9). Party affiliation and ideology of U.S. registered voters. Party affiliation and ideology of registered voters

U.S. Census Bureau. (2025, April 30). 2024 presidential election voting and registration tables now available. U.S. Department of Commerce. 2024 Voting and Registration Tables

Virginia Department of Elections. (2026). November 3, 2026 general election. Virginia election information

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