Typically, voting in the general election across the United States is in November in even number years. Every alternating even number of years is the Presidential Election, f.e. 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024 and so on. This year, although there will not be a Presidential Election, voting is still very important.

Michael Shane Rogers, the current political science instructor at Lake Land College (LLC), explained “in regards to finding a voting precinct in Coles County, the person can go to the website,  https://www.americantowns.com/coles-county-il/voting-guide-polling-place-locations/, to find their voting location for Election Day.”  

Rogers anticipates that the voting trends in Coles County will lean Republican. He stated that, “It is an area that is heavily dominated by the Republican Party. President Trump won Coles County by around 62% in the 2020 election. Other candidates like Mary Miller also have won by large margins in their congressional campaigns for several years.”

Rogers predicts “Locally, and statewide the Governor’s race will likely dominate most of the attention along with the Workers’ Rights Amendment to the Illinois Constitution. The amendment will ask voters whether they wish to establish a constitutional right for employees to organize and bargain collectively, specifically to negotiate ‘wages, hours and working conditions and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work.’” Regarding a national scale, he expects that the race between U.S Senator Tammy Duckworth and Kathy Salvi will determine which political team will control the Senate. 

Rogers emphasized that nationally “Issues like abortion, how to handle rising inflation, the economy, and climate change, will likely be important.  The midterm elections are usually a sort of referendum or barometer on how the current presidential administration is doing all across the county.”

Rogers currently teaches American National Government, State and local government and International Relations. Before  teaching on campus, he worked for two U.S. Congressmen Glenn Poshard and David Phelps. He was also employed as a staff assistant in the Coles County District Office and was an intern at Washington, D.C. He also worked as a campaign coordinator in the congressional campaigns for the aforementioned Congressmen and served time on local township boards and the Coles County board.

Rogers has been interested in the field of political science since his junior year in high school. He stated that he “had a wonderful and inspiring Government teacher who helped me understand how politics involved people in their everyday lives using processes to enact or stop policies that directly affected them.”