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Vote, but don't stop there

This Saturday, the candidates will be biting their nails, while voters file in and out of the polling places.

This Saturday, the candidates will be biting their nails, while voters file in and out of the polling places. In the last few weeks, we've heard politicians exhorting us to get out and vote, and about how it's the cornerstone of our democratic process.

That may be true, but a cornerstone does not a complete structure make.

Democracy happens - or fails to happen - every day of the year. It happens most frequently in the interactions between council members and school trustees as they wrangle over budgets and bylaws.

It happens when one person stands up to complain and when hundreds march in protest. It happens in the letters pages of this and many other newspapers, and on blogs and forums, where people vent their spleens about those numbskulls running things.

It's not pretty. It's not neat and tidy, and it doesn't always come with a Hollywood ending. (The dirty secret of democracy is that sometimes you get the wrong solution even when the process goes right.)

So vote, if you want a say in who's going to run the show for the next three years. Vote because you truly believe in a candidate, or because you can't stomach the thought of that other guy getting in. They're both valid reasons to mark an X.

But continue participating after election day. Learn what you can. We humbly suggest that your local papers can keep you up to date, but you should also talk to your neighbours, your councillors and mayor. One of the best things about local politicians is that they actually return calls.

Learn how your civic government works, especially if you need it to do something for you. Knowing how to sign up to speak before the council, or about the difference between a rezoning and a building permit, can save you a lot of grief.

There are neater, cleaner, more trouble-free ways of running a government than democracy.

The trouble is, most of them are dictatorships.