Editorial: One last weekend to consider the issues, then vote

On the cusp of the weekend before Election Day 2015, we come with both encouragement and warning.

Encouragement is the most important of our aims. If you haven't yet taken advantage of the many opportunities to cast your vote for school board or community government positions, you can still do so today or tomorrow. Otherwise, we urge you to give the elections some serious thought this weekend and then go to the polls on Tuesday.

Big national and state elections tend to attract all the headlines, because their scope is so comprehensive, the issues they evoke so sensational and the personalities so much larger than life. But the decisions being made in voting booths around the suburbs through Tuesday will more directly affect our immediate quality of life, the strength of our children's education, the value of our homes, the weight of our pocketbooks and the comfort of our neighborhoods than any decisions we make for president, Congress, the legislature or governor.

For that reason, it can be disappointing to ponder the disproportionate influence that accrues when only a small portion of registered voters take to the booth to select school board members, mayors and municipal officials or even to decide the fate of local tax questions. Democracy suffers when citizens sit out the vote.

But it also suffers when those who do vote fall sway to local passions or the distortions local politics can produce as effectively as any highly sophisticated national campaign. And so, a warning: Be careful.

Think critically about the claims you read and see and hear - whether they be in a highly publicized and contentious board campaign like the race for College of DuPage trustees or a quieter but still-heated race like so many throughout the suburbs as in Palatine Elementary District 15 or Long Grove village board or the Woodland District 50 referendum or the Schaumburg library board.

All these races and many more are replete with passionate claims, some responsible, some not so much so. Sorting through them takes careful thought, but there are resources to help. You may not be able to check out every outlandish last-minute claim that will be stuffed into your door in the next three days, but you can get good insight into most candidates and campaigns through the Daily Herald's online Election Guide as well as by simply searching our website for stories we've produced on most races.

Read. Think. Question. Reflect. Vote and vote wisely. You have only a little more time, but taking part in the process will help you make a direct impact immediately and for years to come - and in a way that no other activity you'll engage in can match.