Polls open in US on election day

(Vatican Radio) US citizens are at the polls Tuesday in general elections. The race that has garnered the most attention in the US and abroad is the one for the presidency. The incumbent, Democrat Barack Obama, and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, were neck-and-neck in the hours before the dawning of election day. The campaign has been quite possibly the most expensive in US history, and appeared to be as close as any race has ever been just a few hours before polling stations opened on the East Coast. Listen to our report:

The main issues during the campaign were economic and financial: the incumbent is insisting the country is on the right track and asking voters to give him four more years in which to complete his work, the major legislative achievement of which was the passage of a highly controversial health care reform law; the challenger is arguing that the President’s economic policies have clearly failed, that four more years with them in place would mean continued sluggish growth, high unemployment and unsustainable deficit spending.

As the campaign season kicked into high gear, the Head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York encouraged Catholics and all people of good will to remember that all the duties of citizenship – including voting – are essentially moral duties, the discharge of which requires proper formation. “As far as possible, citizens should take an active part in public life - ” said Cardinal Dolan in the video message on participating in faithful citizenship, which appears on the USCCB website, adding, “that’s from the catechism.” Cardinal Dolan went on to say, “Of course: to vote – we have an obligation to do that – and then [to] hold our elected officials responsible for their promises and positions.”

To help the faithful prepare for the vote, the Catholic bishops of the United States reissued their document on Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, first published in 2007. The Bishops attached a new Introductory Note to the document, emphasizing the importance of religious freedom and raising six “current and fundamental problems, some involving opposition to intrinsic evils and others raising serious moral questions,” namely: abortion and threats to the lives and dignity of the vulnerable, sick or unwanted; threats to Catholic ministries, including health care, education and social services, to violate their consciences or stop serving those in need; intensifying efforts to redefine marriage; unemployment, poverty and debt; immigration; and wars, terror and violence, particularly in the Middle East. In presenting the document, the bishops wrote, “It does not offer a voter’s guide, scorecard of issues or direction on how to vote. It applies Catholic moral principles to a range of important issues and warns against misguided appeals to ‘conscience’ to ignore fundamental moral claims, to reduce Catholic moral concerns to one or two matters, or to justify choices simply to advance partisan, ideological or personal interests.”

In addition to the Presidency, 1/3 of the 100 seats in the US Senate and every one of the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives are on ballots, along with state-wide and local offices and other measures, which differ from state to state.