BY GRANT U.E BERG, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Yard signs, posters, online advertisements, and not one inch of the city is free from it. The election is approaching. The question remains though: who do I vote for?

Many on campus are pushing for Raymond Dehn, a DemocraticFarmer-Labor frontrunner and current state representative with an impressive track record of activism openness as a candidate. He reminds me of a grandfather who flows easily with the political punches pundits throw at him.

Other candidates include Captain Jack Sparrow (you’ve probably seen his posters plastered around town), a 66-year-old man from Atkins who was arrested in 2012 after delivering a petition to the president of U.S. Bank and was heavily active in the Occupy Wallstreet movement.

David John Wilson of the Rainbows, Butterflies and Unicorns Party is running alongside his unicorn cohort Votey McVoteface.

So the question remains.

Among these and the other seven or so candidates, you’re still probably struggling to develop an opinion as many of these candidates have overlapping agendas, visions and political views for the city. For many Auggies, this might be their first mayoral election or maybe even their first election at all. You may feel tempted to neglect your civic duty and not vote, or maybe you forgot to register, but I encourage you to do one thing on Nov. 7, no matter your political agenda or party: go vote.

With this being said, I want to throw out my support for Rev. Dr. Nekima Levy-Pounds. She’s influential, she’s cunning, she’s a law professor, she’s an ordained minister and she’s a lifelong political activist with a love for Minneapolis and for seeing its residents thrive in ways we haven’t seen in years. Dr. Levy-Pounds has a strong platform for housing reform and wants to see Minneapolis eliminate homelessness and provide lower cost housing. She is a strong ally to the LGBT+ Community and firmly believes in reforming criminal justice in Minneapolis so race, socioeconomic status, gender or sexuality have no bearing on how cases are handled.

She wants to see an improvement in police and community relations, and she wants direct improvement in how our policing system works and targets marginalized groups and deports those suspected of being undocumented citizens.

Nekima is a strong candidate for your first or even your second choice for mayor and is more deserving of recognition for the time, the effort and allyship she puts into her community. I encourage every reader and every Auggie to spend time researching their candidates and to carefully craft their political opinions. We’ve seen the damage that not voting and choosing not to participate in democracy can do to a country. Even if the election seems to be less high stakes than, say, the presidential or senatorial election, it has a large swing of influence in your community and communities with substantially less privilege than your own. Go vote on Nov. 7, or go vote early at the Early Vote Center at 217 3rd St.S.

This article first appeared in the Friday, October 20, 2017, Edition of The Echo.