While much of the nation had rushed to vote early, Idaho held back compared to other states, with only 402,310 ballots cast before Nov. 1.
While some counties set new early voting records, the state sat at 56.6% of the number of ballots cast in 2016 overall, while the nation reached 73.4% and some states — including Washington, Texas, Oregon, Montana and Hawaii — had exceeded their total ballots cast in 2016 just during early and absentee voting, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
Robert Bate, of Idaho Falls, told East Idaho Times that he voted early and in-person.
“I’ve voted in every national election since I was allowed to vote,” Bate said. “It’s the least I can do to honor those who fought and died securing my freedom to begin with.”
While Bate said he voted in each race on the ballot, he feels that the U.S. has never had a more crucial presidential race.
“We are really at a crossroads, and the choice before us is not so much between merely two presidential candidates, but rather do we want to retain and maintain a constitutional republic that our founding fathers created for us, or do we want to jump over the cliff into the abyss of socialism and communism that the more radical portion of the Democrat Party has taken over?” Bate told East Idaho Times.
Bate said that he feels the “radical left” controls the Democratic Party’s direction and has decided that coercion through government mandate is preferable to freedom and open debate.
“The left has been systematically replacing personal responsibility with government dependence,” Bate told East Idaho Times. “Democrats have, for several decades, been attempting to convince minorities, especially African Americans that they are victims and can’t be successful without government intervention.”
The only way forward that guarantees any retention of the freedoms that enable American progress and prosperity is through a second term for President Donald Trump, he said.
