If you haven’t voted yet, put this paper down and go get it done. You have until 8 tonight.

Let’s be strategic about this. The only people who have a right to belly ache, complain and/or criticize elected officials are the ones who vote them into office, or vote against them to keep them out of office but they win anyways. If you vote someone into office and they end up doing a lousy job or breaking their promises, you have the right to stand up in a public meeting and start out your protest by saying, “I voted for you but you didn’t do what you said you’d do.”

Better yet, hold up the colorful brochure you received from that person in the mail during these past weeks and read back to them their campaign promises. THEN lodge your protest. This bears a lot more weight if you start out with, “I voted for you,” than if you say, “Well, I would have voted for you if I’d mailed my ballot on time” or “I would have voted for you if I wasn’t so busy,” or worse, “I would have voted for you but I didn’t know who was running.”

Let’s clear that up right now. Our counties provide voter information. In Weber County, go to weberelections.gov and search for your city’s contact number to learn about your candidates. In Davis County, visit daviscountyutah.gov to find a matrix of candidates listed per city that includes the office they’re running for, political party, candidate status, bio, website, email address as well as ballot drop-off locations. So we can’t really claim we didn’t know who was running. We can only claim we were too lazy, busy or disinterested to find out.

Another excuse is the idea that your one vote doesn’t really matter. Well, it does. Because (let’s say this all together now) if everyone had that kind of attitude, then our voting process would fail.

I once spent a great deal of thought on the voting process because I was considering running for office. I’d spent a year fighting city hall to keep the distant landfill from expanding toward my young neighborhood — a classic NIMBY (not in my backyard). So I led a battle with my neighbors, and we learned the hard way how to fight a monstrosity much larger, more equipped and smugly self-assured than we were — and actually win. The landfill headed in another direction and I went back to staying at home. Or so I thought. But one thing led to another, I was asked to run for city council and, after some thought, I did. Just like the candidates on your ballot.

What on earth makes a person do something like that? The answers are as varied as the candidates. But there are some commonalities. Candidates generally have a goal in mind, often generated by a brush with city or county hall that makes them sit up, take notice and decide they can do better. Sometimes, a potential candidate sees an unfulfilled need, a perceived injustice or an upcoming change they oppose. They are common people doing an uncommon thing.

But no one is born with this goal in mind. No mother rocks her little baby to sleep while softly singing, “I hope you grow up to be a city council member, my darling.” No kid runs around on the playground hollering, “I’m going to be a mayor when I grow up!” It just happens, as though we’re destined at some predetermined point in our lives to do something as crazy as step into that uncomfortable spotlight, state our name and beg, “Vote for me.” And then endure years of difficult, complicated, generally thankless work. It’s a challenging, fulfilling experience that takes hold of your life for an unspecified season. (It spurred me on to a second term).

The point is, none of this works without the voter. If no one votes, no one wins. But everyone loses. In this country, we can never, ever let that happen. So bravo to you if you already voted. And if you haven’t — go.

D. Louise Brown lives in Layton. She writes a biweekly column for the Standard-Examiner.

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