With no races for governor or Congress, this off-year election is not likely to bring a lot of people to the polls. That is a shame. With an important civil rights referendum, five bonds, a constitutional amendment and local races on the ballot, many questions are likely to be decided by slim margins. That’s why turnout matters.

Voting is simple but important. If you’re registered, you just need to show up at your local polling place. Your town office can tell you where that is if you have doubts. It couldn’t hurt to bring identification, though you shouldn’t need it. Not registered? No problem – bring identification and head for town hall – you may be able to vote there as well. Even if there is a problem with your registration, you can still vote under Maine’s challenged ballot law, so there’s no reason to leave a polling place without having your say (on the ballot, that is; leave campaigning at the door).

You don’t need to fill in every question on the ballot. If you don’t have a preference or aren’t comfortable with any other choices on a particular question, leave it blank. The rest of your ballot still counts. (If, by the way, you make a mistake on a ballot, you can ask for another.)

The most watched item on the ballot is Question 1, a measure that seeks to repeal the addition of sexual orientation to the classes that are currently included in the state’s human rights law. While polls show Question 1 not passing, the past two votes on the issue have gone the other way, primarily because opponents of extending civil rights protections to gays are better organized than supporters.

The same thinking could affect the five bond issues on the ballot. Those who oppose government borrowing and spending are more likely to head to the polls to nix these measures than are those who support them. If you believe the bonds are for important infrastructure work, you’d better get there too.

There are no cash bonuses for voting, no casks of whiskey or live pigs – enticements used in centuries past to get voters to the polls. Yet voting still matters, whether you want to fund a project or stop one, back an idea or reject one; voting matters, and despite the recent loosening of times and places for voting, today is your last chance.

Don’t miss it.