"Your vote is your voice": A look at why voting matters

Brody Saner, a assemblage pupil successful Kansas says helium believes it's his work to vote."If there's thing you're not blessed with, spell retired and vote. Do your portion to alteration it." 

Early voting is underway passim the state successful the 2026 midterm elections and Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. All 435 seats successful the House are connected the ballot, and voters successful 35 states volition beryllium electing senators, 36 states volition beryllium voting successful governor's races and determination are much than 150 ballot measures crossed 40 states. The radical and policies elected volition signifier the aboriginal of the Iran War, AI regularisation and truthful overmuch more. 

However, midterm elections thin to gully millions less voters than presidential, contempt being "arguably more opportune moments for voters to get what they want," according to Professor Donald Green, a Columbia University governmental idiosyncratic who has spent 3 decades studying voting, "because comparatively tiny shifts successful the wide ballot tin pb to melodramatic shifts successful policy."

Here's what's astatine involvement and wherefore the experts accidental showing up matters: 

Why is voting important successful general? 

"Your ballot is your voice," said Kansas elector Tracy Preisser erstwhile asked wherefore she thinks it's important to vote. And it's true. Voting decides who writes the rules communities unrecorded under.  

At the nationalist level, which enactment controls the House and the Senate is astatine stake. And whether the Democrats oregon the Republicans triumph volition find whether Congress acts arsenic a cheque oregon an enabler connected statesmanlike powerfulness for the last 2 years of Donald Trump's presidency.  

Locally, candidates down the ballot ballot play a portion successful deciding taxes, the terms of a doctor's visit, schoolhouse funding, oregon who sits connected the seat successful a section court. 

But a CBS News/YouGov canvass conducted recovered that astir voters don't judge that either enactment has a program to marque radical amended off. The bulk of voters believed that they wouldn't beryllium amended disconnected financially careless of which enactment wins the electorate. 

This sentiment is starring immoderate voters to see sitting this predetermination out. "I conscionable don't spot anybody astatine this constituent capable to ballot for them, Republican [or] Democrat," says Kansas husbandman Mandy Sieren. "I deliberation they're each crooked."

To that, Green would reason that "although they mightiness beryllium dissatisfied with some parties, typically it comes down to the candidates themselves, and [voters] person to marque an informed prime 1 mode oregon the other," helium said.

Why does your ballot successful midterm elections matter? 

By immoderate metrics, midterm elections are erstwhile a person's ballot tin substance the most, due to the fact that little radical enactment successful them. In the 2022 midterms, 46% of eligible voters formed ballots, compared to 65% successful the 2024 statesmanlike elections. The smaller the electorate, the much value each ballot carries. 

And the margins tin beryllium razor-thin. In  Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert contention successful the 2022 midterm election, she held onto her Colorado spot by 546 votes. In 2024, Democrat Adam Gray won California's 13th Congressional District by conscionable 187 votes. And in  2020, Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks won her Iowa House contention by conscionable six votes. This circular of elections is expected to person immoderate arsenic contentious races. 

But Green says voting isn't lone astir an individual's ballot. What matters, helium said, is who shows up arsenic a group. 

"It whitethorn beryllium astonishing to them however attentive politicians are… to which groups ballot astatine precocious rates and which groups don't," says Green. He says that this is the crushed that candidates thin to wage much attraction to older voters, who are astir apt to vote, and issues important to young and mediocre people, who ballot little frequently, "are often devalued." 

How could votes successful the 2026 midterm elections interaction our country? 

Midterm elections are erstwhile voters astir often alteration the people successful Washington, and are a cheque connected the president's powerfulness halfway done a term. The president's enactment has mislaid seats successful 37 of the past 41 midterm elections

And this clip around, power of some chambers of Congress is successful play, and the margins couldn't beryllium slimmer. 

In the house, Republicans presently clasp a constrictive majority. Democrats request a nett summation of conscionable 3 seats to triumph control. In the Senate, Democrats request a nett summation of 4 seats to flip the chamber. Whoever controls Congress volition determine whether much backing for the Iran War is approved oregon if AI regularisation is proposed, amongst countless different pieces of imaginable legislation. 

Meanwhile, much than 30 states are electing governors, with competitory races from Georgia to Ohio. Governors person immense powerfulness implicit the destiny of the information halfway buildout, due to the fact that of their powerfulness to o.k. moratoriums, determine connected taxation breaks, and name inferior commissioners. And determination are 41 ballot initiatives connected information centers crossed 13 states. 

 In New York City, voting is idiosyncratic for canvass idiosyncratic Sandra Strother. She says her uncle was killed trying to ballot successful Alabama successful the 1950s due to the fact that helium was an African American. 

"That's my large motivator" she says for wherefore she makes clip not conscionable to ballot herself, but to guarantee others tin too.