Column: Voting this year? We are here for you

The OC Voice is a portion of the OC Report newsletter where local residents may have a platform to talk about local issues they care about. Kayleigh Carpenter is a sophomore advertising & public relations major with minors in French and social & economic justice. Carpenter is an assistant city & state editor for The Daily Tar Heel. 

Monumental and unprecedented —  this is 2020.

With so much upheaval over the course of the past months, one event has stayed the same: the election. The pandemic may have affected how we’re voting or even who we’re voting for, but at the end of the day, the results in November will shape the next four years for this county and the state.

Here in North Carolina we are a purple state; maybe one of the closest this year. Every race on the ballot has the potential to swing either way, so voting down the ballot is important. The races outside of the president, U.S. Senate and governor feature positions with important roles in running our state.

Your commissioner of insurance both regulates the insurance industry in the state and is in charge of training fire and rescue personnel and improving building codes.

Your commissioner of agriculture protects, maintains and enhances the production of the state's agriculture and promotes public health programs.

Your state auditor ensures taxpayer dollars are reported correctly and spent efficiently by auditing state, county and municipal entities.

We have judicial races too. You have the power to vote for those whose rulings will set a precedent for all that follow.

You have the power. 

You can cast your vote for whoever you want to shape the state for the next four years.

Here at the DTH City & State desk, we want to be your source of information. We want you to feel confident about who you are voting for and how you will vote for them.

We are profiling the candidates down the ballot from the U.S. Senate to the Orange County Board of Commissioners. We are getting their stances on issues that are important to students, but we aren’t forgetting about our Orange County community members.

We have a podcast called Before You Vote, where we discuss all the topics related to voting. So far we have covered why your vote matters, how the pandemic has impacted the election and how to vote. Up next is voter misinformation and more about the races down the ballot. 

It comes out every Tuesday on Apple Music and Spotify until the election, so keep a lookout for it. 

We have already released an N.C. General Assembly voting guide for those races across the state in collaboration with OneVote N.C. and we will be releasing a local voter guide in the coming week.

Online, we have The Daily Tar Heel Election Center where all election-related stories are posted, so you’ll have all the information about the candidates, how to vote and any issues from the local up to national government right at your fingertips. 

We will be providing election night coverage and giving you the results as we know them. 

Post-election, we will still be covering the elected officials and making sure they are keeping their campaign promises. We are and will continue going to community events, town meetings and doing what we need to do to keep our readers informed.

If there is anything you think we’re missing, let us know. We are here for you.

If you live in Orange County and want to make your voice heard on something you care about locally, email city@dailytarheel.com. 

@kecarpenter1

@DTHCityState | city@dailytarheel.com