Thank you for your hard work on Tuesday promoting our Democratic candidates and for standing by your polls while urging voters to vote straight Democratic. An overwhelming 87,000 voters (41%) voted Straight Party Democratic (compared to 45,300 Republican Straight Party Votes, or 21%). Your efforts were rewarded with a very good day for Democrats in Montgomery County. On Tuesday, Montgomery County voters responded with sweeping Democratic numbers for County Commissioners Val Arkoosh & Kenneth E. Lawrence, Jr. and all of our County Row Officers – Lori Schreiber, Karen Geld Sanchez, Michael Milbourne, Kevin R. Steele, Noah Marlier, Jeanne Sorg, D. Bruce Hanes, Sean Kilkenny, and Jason E. Salus. Our Court of Common Pleas slate – Henry S. Hilles III, Melissa Schwartz Sterling and Virgil B. Walker were also winners!

Nine hundred and forty five days and we have lost our country. Our rights, our children’s futures, our electoral system, our allies, our credibility, our honor, our health, our social safety nets, our position of trust as a world partner seeking peace, our clean air, water and food, our national park system, the protection of our wilderness, our chance for clean energy, our freedom from gun violence, our system of justice, our cybersecurity, our privacy, our public education system, and other losses too numerous to mention have all been ripped from us by this president and his enablers in Congress.

Prior to the primary election, my husband and I participated in one of the multiple, well-publicized voting system practice sessions offered by Montgomery County. If a person has ever taken a questionnaire or test that requires filling in the bubbles, that’s how easy completing the new paper ballot was. Then we each took our paper ballot and fed it into a scanner, which was just like putting a dollar bill into a Coke machine. Who hasn’t done these things?

Justice, our children, and our money. All three of these will be affected by the choices we make in the upcoming Nov. 7 election. With all the attention being paid to the 2018 and 2020 elections in the media, we in Pennsylvania need to be reminded that we hold two elections every year and this is our time to select judges, school board members, town councils, auditors, tax collectors, and mayors who will have a greater effect on our lives in many ways.