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Troup County, and the rest of Georgia, went to the polls Tuesday to vote in elections that will shape our county and state for the next few years.

At the time this was written, we had no idea who won Tuesday night’s elections. Unfortunately, this opinion page had to be sent to press well before the results were in so that we could ensure you had a paper in your hand Wednesday morning.

With that said, it doesn’t really matter who won Tuesday’s elections — the end result needs to be the same.

Whether incumbents swept every seat or mass changes took place, this community needs our elected officials to come together after a long election cycle.

The school board races were decided Tuesday and have been the spark of conversation, especially on social media.

But regardless of whether the incumbents won every seat, TRACER-backed candidates won every seat or a mixture of the two — the divisiveness can’t continue.

Our students and teachers need support from a board that works together to make them successful.

For Tuesday night’s winners, we look forward to seeing how you’ll make Troup County a better place to live and work.

It’ll be months before newly elected candidates are sworn in, but we hope you’ll roll up your sleeves and work immediately.

For anyone who was defeated Tuesday night, we hope you’ll hold your heads up high. Running for public office is a real challenge, and putting yourself in the limelight is difficult. We applaud everyone who tried it this time and came up short.

We hope you’ll consider running again. Unopposed elections are bad for our country, so we always need people that are willing to run for office, and many candidates say it gets easier the second or third time.

Thank you to everyone for a great primary election season.

It won’t be long before we’re casting our ballots in November.