Tomorrow is the day for Butler County’s registered voters to exercise their right and responsibility by going to the polls.

With the presidency up for grabs, there should be a robust turnout, although not as it should be.

Some people are calling this election the most important in this country’s history, at least from the presidential perspective. However, that can be disputed, considering all that’s happened in this nation’s history.

Despite the troubling unfinished business and serious issues facing the country, the United States will survive and most likely move forward, regardless of whether President Barack Obama is re-elected or whether Republican hopeful Mitt Romney captures the Oval Office.

Economics 101 describes the up-and-down economic cycles that constantly are in play. Whichever candidate is victorious tomorrow will likely inherit more positive economic conditions than what have so far existed during the last four years.

Perhaps the most important challenge for voters tomorrow will be to look beyond the campaign rhetoric, negative ads and scare tactics that candidates have employed and acknowledge an important fact: No candidate will change Washington, or Pennsylvania, singlehandedly.

Additionally, no president can make great strides without a reasonably cooperative Congress.

Rather than candidates promising something they can’t deliver, it would have been better to commit themselves to working with colleagues of both parties to effect progress and necessary change.

Instead, judging from the campaign ads that have inundated the airwaves in recent months, all that is clear is that the victorious candidates mostly will fall in line with their respective parties, opposing the other side at every opportunity.

The fear to cross party lines is why there is such governmental gridlock in Washington and Harrisburg. In most cases, the emphasis is on serving the political parties and their leaders, rather than the people who are willing to embrace bipartisan solutions that make sense.

“Bipartisan” has become a bad word in both Washington and Harrisburg. Someday that is going to have to change.

Some people have expressed frustration over the conduct of this fall’s campaign, just being glad that tomorrow it ends. Some people won’t vote simply because they’re confused or tired of the negativity and lack of substance in most campaigns. And sorting fact from fiction, or smear, is more difficult than ever.

In making their final preparations for going to the polls, voters should consider the issues facing themselves and the nation. They should be suspicious of what they’ve heard from political commentators, pundits and partisans on the left or right.

It’s important to vote but it’s equally important to vote intelligently, not based on the half-truths and distortions.

Indeed, tomorrow’s election is important, and all registered voters should set aside part of their day for this important exercise. They also should offer rides to friends or neighbors who need transportation to the polls.

If voters are guilty of any fault during this campaign, it is that they didn’t demand more from the candidates than the negative campaigning that dominated it and possibly set the stage for more years of unproductive partisanship.