I'll be voting in our local elections on Tuesday, November 8, and I hope you will too. Iowa has a tradition of fair, clean elections and good voter turn-out at the polls.

You can vote by mail, at your county courthouse, at a satellite voting stations, or at the polls on Election Day. If you need to register to vote or to update your address, you can do it when you cast your ballot. And we make sure every vote counts: all electronic voting machines create a paper trail in case of machine malfunction.

So this November 8th, exercise your right to vote. It's one of the great things that make us Americans.

In 2011, the Iowa Legislature will establish new boundaries for State Senate, State Representative and U.S. House districts.

All states go through this redistricting process every ten years after census data is collected. This time around, Iowa will lose one Congressional seat because of shifts in population nationwide, giving us four seats, instead of five, in the U.S. House.