Pennsylvania’s municipal primary is today, and perhaps unlike any other election on the calendar, it requires a little bit of effort on the part of voters.

Let’s explain: It shouldn’t be any easier or harder to get to a polling place and cast a ballot than it was last November, or in the primary election in 2022. In fact, odds are pretty good that you’ll be able to zip right in and out, since turnout for municipal primary elections tends to be pretty tepid.

It’s a given that turnout is highest in presidential elections because the chief executive is the one figure all voting-age Americans can weigh in on, and those quadrennial contests get heaps and heaps of media coverage. In the last couple of decades, is there anyone who didn’t have a strong opinion about Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or George W. Bush?

But municipal elections are not tinged with the same element of epoch-making high drama. These aren’t the history-makers who broker peace deals, move trillion-dollar pieces of legislation and, when it’s all over, are the subject of hefty biographies. The folks on the ballot in municipal elections are your friends and neighbors who approve contracts to get the garbage picked up, who decide what roads need to be fixed, or who should be hired as an assistant school superintendent.

It’s hardly scintillating. But it’s worth your while to find out who the candidates are, what they stand for and if they will best represent us.

The reality, too, given the way voters of one partisan stripe or another tend to be heavily concentrated in specific localities, is that the primary election is where the action is.

So, please, go vote on Tuesday. And vote for candidates who believe in good governance, have ideas on how to make their townships, cities, boroughs, schools or counties better, and who will work well with others to accomplish that.

— Observer-Reporter