Voting on Tuesday, the old-fashioned way

This Election Day, people are best off pushing aside the popular cliche that 2025 is an "off year." Local elections are on the ballot across Long Island and those elected will be responsible for directly delivering local services and managing the infrastructure, future plans and character of hundreds of distinct jurisdictions.

People live in large and small home communities, not in partisan categories. In the American day-to-day, town councils and county legislative majorities and supervisors' offices are more consistently relevant to citizens than are the White House and Congress. Voting locally is essential. The candidates and issues such as taxes or new housing are right here in your non-virtual experience.

Kudos to the voters who still participate knowing that not all ballot entries are real choices. Out of 12 judgeship elections in Nassau as well as Suffolk, 11 are uncontested races with cross-endorsed candidates. Once at the polling place, many informed voters make a point of skipping over those races and focusing on productive choices.

Either way it's no reason to be discouraged from voting. Focus on any competitive races, no matter how small, that do attract interest because we the people, not the party bosses, must ultimately decide them for better or worse.

Choices do bring out the electorate.

In Nassau County, during the early voting period this year, 91,243 people took part. Of these, 34,338 were registered Democrats, 39,068 Republicans and 14,739 unaffiliated. There are multiple points of interest in the county: one high-profile race between Bruce A. Blakeman and Seth I. Koslow for county executive, another between Nicole Aloise and Anne C. Donnelly for district attorney, legislative contests, and a scrap for Town of Hempstead supervisor.

Contrast that with Suffolk County, where during the early balloting period only 50,254 residents went to vote. These included 20,952 Democratic voters and 17,499 Republicans. Incumbents in two important countywide offices — for district attorney and for sheriff — are without opposition.

Lower turnout in the early voting days should encourage those who haven't voted yet to do so the traditional way, on Tuesday. Consider the glass half full — mathematically, your vote will count a wee bit more — as a slightly larger portion of the electorate.

In New York City, with its massive centralized government and huge population, the dramatic and nationally hyped race for mayor drew 735,317 people to the polls for early voting, more than four times the 169,879 in 2021. The dramatic three-way fray among Zohran Mamdani, Andrew M. Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa is driving the turnout.

All over Long Island, with nearly 2.9 million residents, this election's choices do not offer a global stage show, but an important and tangible chance for people to collectively change, or not change, their representatives. Polls, as always, are open Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Vote if you haven't already.