Murfreesboro resident Ramona DeSalvo plans to vote in every race on her local ballot this year — though the presidential race is especially important to her.
DeSalvo is likely not alone in her voting opinion.
Nationwide, Americans are creating for early voting, and in some states, such as Texas, pre-election day ballot casting surpassed the total number of tallies in 2016.
The U.S. Elections Projects reported that as of Oct. 30, 85,419,780 have already voted nationwide.
In DeSalvo's home state of Tennessee, 2,280,747 have voted as of Oct. 29, the U.S. Elections Project reported. Most of the ballots in Tennessee were cast through in-person early voting, with approximately 1.9 million in-person ballots cast.
"I keep hearing that every election's the most important election, but, no, this is the most important election – in my lifetime," DeSalvo told the Nashville Standard in a recent interview about the upcoming elections, headlined nationwide by President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
In local elections, DeSalvo said she is particularly interested in the selections for judges.
"Most people don't pay attention to the judicial elections because they either know the name or they don't," she told the Nashville Standard. "It's important to know who's making [the] decisions because there's some pretty bad judges that can get elected."
But regardless of what specific race she is voting on, DeSalvo said that she thinks understanding the role of the government's branches and levels is essential, particularly federalism and the federal government's role under the U.S. Constitution versus the role of state governments.
"That has been blurred so much that people have been trained to be dependent – and look to – the federal government for everything," she said. "And that's not how our constitutional system is designed.
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