Most of us head to the polls with one or two big races in mind — and then rush past everything below them, or skip the smaller elections entirely. But the offices further down the ballot are the ones that hit closest to home: your schools, your property taxes, your county, your safety. Leaving those lines blank doesn’t keep you on the sidelines — it just lets someone else decide them for you. If we want a Minnesota that protects our freedoms and builds stronger communities for our kids and grandkids, it starts with voting the whole ballot, in every election. Here’s why every race counts:

1. The offices closest to home shape daily life the most. School boards, county commissioners, city councils, sheriffs, and judges decide what’s taught in your kids’ and grandkids’ classrooms, how your property taxes get spent, and how public safety is handled. Washington dominates the headlines, but these are the seats that actually touch your community every day.
2. Your vote carries far more weight the further down the ballot you go. A presidential race is decided by millions; local and legislative races are often decided by a few hundred votes, sometimes by a handful, occasionally by a tie. Your own county commissioner and state rep/senate wins prove the point — those are the margins where one motivated voter genuinely tips the result.
3. Down-ballot is where you build the bench. Today’s school board member or county commissioner is tomorrow’s state legislator or statewide candidate. Every local seat is a foundation for the next race up — and because so many people stop voting after the top of the ticket, conservatives who fill out the whole ballot have outsized say in who governs at every level.