Today is finally the day.

Today, millions of Americans will perform their time-honored, if not exactly sacred, duty of heading off to their polling places, standing in line and then selecting their preferred candidates for public office. For those who have tired of all the politicking in the run-up to today’s elections — and, really, who isn’t tired of it all? — it’s not a moment too soon.

Here in Suffolk, with contested races for School Board and City Council seats, as well as a congressman and a senator, voters have had to process a wealth of information about the various candidates appearing on the ballot. We hope they have come prepared and will not make uninformed choices, whatever their choices turn out to be.

A total of 18 candidates are running for nine local seats on the City Council and School Board.

For City Council, incumbent Mike Duman runs unopposed in the Chuckatuck Borough; incumbent Charles Brown faces challenges from Leroy Bennett and Clinton Jenkins in the Cypress Borough; incumbent Jeffrey Gardy faces a challenge from Tim Johnson in the Holy Neck Borough; and incumbent Charles Parr is squaring off against challengers Don Goldberg and Kerry Holmes in the Suffolk Borough.

For School Board, incumbents Lorraine Skeeter in the Cypress Borough and Enoch Copeland in the Holy Neck Borough are running unopposed. In the Chuckatuck Borough, incumbent Linda Bouchard faces a challenge from Dorothy Bland Gamble. In the Suffolk Borough, incumbent Mike Debranski faces a challenge from Thelma Hinton. A special election to fill an unexpired term in the Sleepy Hole Borough finds Charles Leavell, David Mitnick and Jim Perkinson competing for the seat.

For the U.S. Senate, incumbent Sen. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat, is challenged by the Republican Party’s Ed W. Gillespie and the Libertarians’ Robert C. Sarvis.

For the U.S. House of Representatives, incumbent Congressman J. Randy Forbes, a Republican, is challenged by the Democrats’ Elliott G. Fausz and the Libertarian Party’s Bo C. Brown.

The election also features a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. The issue is whether or not a surviving spouse of any member of the armed forces, who was killed in action, can be exempt from taxation of real property, so as long as the spouse makes that home his or her principal place of residence and also has not remarried.

Mid-term elections are notorious for their low voter turnout, but Suffolk has some important issues to tackle in the years to come, and this election is especially important for the city.

Vote. Just do it.