Words are important in the debate about the FHSU polling station

Letter to the editor

It’s election year and election posters are starting to appear. The one I see most often as I walk around town reads: LET’S VOTE AT FHSU.

My first impression was that people at FHSU couldn’t vote, but a Google search revealed that wasn’t the case at all.

It was not a question of whether one could vote at FHSU, but where.

If you are a registered voter in Ellis County, you vote in the precinct assigned to your permanent address. There are five precincts in the City of Hays.

They are strategically located to provide equal access to voting for all voters. There is no precinct in Hays where a voter must travel more than two miles to vote.

Every polling location must have adequate parking and be ADA accessible. Finding locations that meet these requirements is not easy.

Our community will respond when asked. Polling locations are located at the Sternberg Museum, Hays Recreation Center, VFW Hall, Messiah Lutheran Church and Smokey Hill Country Club.

All of them offer convenient and easily accessible places to vote. It seems to me that the question of where to vote is not a question of necessity but of convenience.

We live in a country where voting is a right and a privilege. We are a country where the people decide how and by whom we are governed. If we don’t vote, we lose our voice.

The signs in the garden and the energy behind them would be better used if they were pointed out.

GO OUT AND VOTE, our democracy depends on it.

Three kilometers to the polling station is no problem.

-Cathy Van Doren,
Residents of Hays