Idaho's May 19 primary election is not optional

Mid-May in northern Idaho is seductive. The tamarack is greening up, the lake is warming and it feels like a fine time to just *be.* Don't fall for it.

May 19 is Idaho's primary — and if you skip it, you've handed your voice to someone else. Someone *will* decide who represents you, who sits on your school board, who shapes the laws governing your water and your land. The only question is whether you'll be one of them.

We pride ourselves on self-reliance up here. So let me ask: what is more self-reliant than walking into your polling place and casting your vote?

In a state as politically one-sided as Idaho, the primary is often the *only* contest that matters. Sit this one out and you may be choosing from options you had no hand in shaping. That's not democracy. That's an audience.

Turnout is low. Margins are thin. Your vote — and your neighbor's, and your family's — is real. That's math.

Voting isn't the ceiling of civic life. It's the floor.

May 19. Mark it. Mean it. Go.

JERI FIEDLER

Priest Lake