We’ve been warned we may not know the final results of the presidential election for days. Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden are locked in a tight race in so-called battleground states, where hundreds of thousands of ballots have yet to be counted as of Wednesday morning.
We expect a lot of nail-biting among those who are strongly invested in the outcome.
But we’d like to take this opportunity to give a well-deserved shout-out to the voters of Franklin County and North Quabbin who turned out at the polls.
Democracy is alive and well here.
Shutesbury takes top honors with 88.96 percent voter turnout. According to Town Clerk Grace Bannasch, poll workers counted 995 ballots from early voting or mail, with 1,338 votes cast by the end of the day.
Coming in second was Leverett with 88.80 percent turnout. The lowest reported Tuesday night was in Orange, with 70.89 percent.
Check out the numbers in the graph that is on Page A3.
We also commend area town clerks and poll workers for handling the high number of ballots.
Certainly, there was a lot to inspire voters. Did they want to keep things as they are with Trump or change that direction with Biden?
Statewide, we had two races for Congress — a representative and senator — plus ballot questions for right to repair and ranked-choice voting. There were other localized questions, including adoption of the Community Preservation Act in Greenfield, as well.
Democracy is a venerable tradition that has lasted since the 17th century via Town Meetings in Massachusetts plus the other New England states. Voters get to have their say at how their town is run and how it spends taxpayers’ money with a yea or nay.
And that’s exactly what they did Tuesday — or earlier — when they voted.
We may not agree on which candidates or ballot questions to support, but we can agree on the principle that voting is a right that should be cherished and used.
That happened, we believe, in this election.