Democracy itself is on the ballot in our upcoming mid-term elections.

Chillingly, the website FiveThirtyEight.com has compiled a nationwide tally of Republicans running in contests in U.S. House, Senate, governor, secretary of state or attorney general contests, and found that hundreds of these candidates either fully support Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, or have expressed doubts or raised questions about the legitimacy of that election.

Sixty percent of American voters will have an election denier on their ballots this fall, according to the website, and many of those deniers and doubters, according to the website’s forecasting models, will win their races.

And if they lose, look for them to say that the other side cheated.

What is happening in America now is also happening in other parts of the world, in a global move away from liberal democracies to authoritarian forms of government.

Here at home, this movement aims to reduce access to voting — an indicator that our country too is stepping toward a form of governance in which the leaders, not the people, make the decisions.

So let’s turn out to vote, Vashon, and do what we can, in our small way, to stem the tide.

There are important races on our ballot — including one to determine who will oversee our own state elections, as Secretary of State.

We believe that Steve Hobbs, a cybersecurity expert, a longtime bipartisan leader in the Washington State Senate, and lieutenant colonel in the Washington Army National Guard, should stay in his job.

Since his appointment as Secretary of State, his stated priorities have been to increase the cybersecurity readiness of our state, combat malicious disinformation, and implement voter-education programs to reach a broad swath of young and previously underserved blocks of voters.

In other words, he’s an election enthusiast, someone who proudly believes that everyone should have the right to vote.

Also on the ballot is a choice to decide who will replace our state representative, Eileen Cody, who has served Vashon ably during her many years in office.

Two progressive candidates are facing off in the race: Leah Griffin and Emily Alvarado, both of whom have been endorsed by 34th District Democrats.

In other races, we’re certain a majority of islanders will vote to return Joe Fitzgibbon, our other state representative, to his seat in the state legislature, as well as mark their ballot to give Joe Nguyen, our state senator, another term in office.

Both are rising stars in Olympia, and both have worked hard on issues important to islanders, including climate change, housing, real tax reform and more.

Likewise, we imagine that islanders, in large numbers, will also support the re-election of Patty Murray and Pramila Jayapal, voting to return them to their seats in the U.S. Congress. Both have been responsive to their constituents on Vashon.

In the race for King County Prosecutor, we believe that Leesa Manion will appeal more to the values of a majority of Vashon voters than her opponent.

Manion, who has served as chief of staff in the prosecutor’s office for the past 15 years, promotes not only protecting public safety and supporting victims of crime, but also data-driven prevention and diversion strategies that have been proven to reduce recidivism, keep vulnerable youth in school, and address mental health and addiction issues.

Keeping juveniles from ever becoming enmeshed in the carceral system in the first place is not only the right thing to do. It is, in itself, an important crime-fighting strategy. These prevention and diversion programs should not become more complex and costly, as Manion’s opponent suggests.

Also on our ballots is King County Prop 1 — an increase in the county’s Conservation Futures levy, which since 1982, has used property tax dollars to protect open space, farmland, forests, salmon habitat, and more, throughout the county.

Through Conservation Futures, Vashon alone gained more than 1,000 acres of public ownership of land and more than 400 acres of easements on the island — including the county’s purchase of 110 acres of Misty Isle Farms, just one month ago.

The benefits of this levy are accrued by only a tiny fraction of islanders’ property tax bills: $0.0312 per $1,000 assessed value of the $11.27 per $1,000 paid — or about 0.3%.

Even with the higher rate, and the big bump in assessed values for island homes for the tax year 2023, the increased property levy for Conservation Futures will cost the owner of a Vashon home with an assessed value of $750,000 in 2023, about $47 — less than $4 a month.

That’s a ridiculously small price to pay to help keep Vashon verdant, and teaming with natural wonder.

Have time to help get out the vote nationwide? The Indivisible Vashon Get Out The Vote efforts, detailed at indivisiblevashon.org/gotv, offers volunteer opportunities to help progressive candidates in Washington and beyond in the final days of the mid-term election, and after that.