Politics, under any circumstances, is a touchy subject for most people.  This year, frankly, seems to have reached a pitch that puts House of Cards to shame but, whether you are a self-professed political-science geek like our West Branch correspondent, or are more akin to wanting to run and hide from it all, I wanted to bring something to your attention:

In 1,176 hours, election season will have ended.

You can check my math, but that should translate into seven weeks from today.  In the grand scheme of things, that really isn’t that long a time at all, but it is also just the right amount of time to become a Good Voter.

And just what is a Good Voter, you might be heard to ask?  Well, a Good Voter, first and foremost, is one who is registered to vote.  In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you have until October 19, 2016 to register to vote.  The links in this paragraph will take you to the webpage for the Secretary of Commonwealth, which will guide you through the registration process (which is not very difficult at all, I promise).

Secondly, a Good Voter knows about the things that will be on the ballot, and has considered the pros and cons of their voting decisions.  This is a really important part.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth and Alice Paul and James Orange didn’t put their lives on the line so that we could all just fill in arrows willy-nilly, but so that we could all take an active, educated, and intentional part in the democratic process.  And that takes a little bit of work beforehand.

In order to help you, Library Journal put out a great article (linked here) entitled “Free Resources for an Informed Electorate” which provides links to websites, video content, infographics, maps, and charts to help you make up your mind about national issues in advance of Election Day.  In Massachusetts, there are also four Questions on the Ballot for you to consider.  MassLive has provided a short, sweet, and non-biased overview of each question, and what a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would mean for each question (linked here).

So take some time and have look through the issues and the people and questions, and then count down with us the 70,560 hours left to go before we can all find something else to talk about….