Over the last week, we’ve been running the first round of stories from our Pulse of the Voters project.

In our Sunday, April 1 edition, we took a regional look at voters. In our Wednesday, April 4th piece we took a national look at the heartlands of American. Today, we look more locally, talking to three Tift County residents about their political beliefs and thoughts.

In the last few months, we’ve talked with conservatives and liberals, Republicans, Democrats, moderates, libertarians and others.

But no matter their politics, many didn’t want to be a part of the project for the same reason: they didn’t want their names next to their political beliefs.

Some were worried about what it would do to their career. Would customers or clients from a different political persuasion stop using their services?

Others were worried about their families, worried that family members — spouses, children, siblings — would be treated differently by their community.

Others were worried about their friends, something voiced by Valdosta resident Barbara Stratton in our Sunday, April 1 article.

Stratton voted for President Donald Trump and, after the 2016 election, she feels that her Democrat friends have been cold towards her.

“I don’t know what happened, but it was almost immediately after he got elected,” Stratton said in the article. “It was immediate. There became a wall there. They just think that if you like Trump, something’s wrong with you.”

It’s not a feeling limited to one party.

Marianne Hill, a 50-year resident of Tift County and long-time Democrat, says she’s felt similarly throughout the years.

“Around here, it’s [being a Democrat] something to feel ashamed of, or at least people make you feel like it is,” she says in today’s article. “And it shouldn’t be that way.”

It’s a shame, that in the freest country in the world — and one with certainly the most robust free speech laws — that we fear talking about our beliefs and feel looked down upon for them.

It’s an understandable fear. Multiple polls have reported a majority of Americans feel our country is greatly politically divided, more so now than in decades.

Our country was built on disagreeing.

Our founding documents — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights — didn’t drop down from the heavens as fully formed tablets on top of Mount Sinai.

They were the result of days, weeks, months and years of debate, often heated, passionate debate.

If not for that debate, those documents never would have existed and our country never would have been.

We owe it to each other to listen to each other and we owe it to each other to respect each other.

No one should be made to feel afraid of voicing their beliefs.

We can disagree with each other completely, can argue and debate passionately and still respect each other.

We can disagree with our friends without ending friendships, can disagree with family members while still being family.

We should listen to each other, and that’s the goal of Pulse of the Voters.

We’ll be running several Pulse of the Voters articles throughout the year, each year through 2020.

We ask that you talk with us and share your opinions on issues, your beliefs, your thoughts on where the country is and where you want it to go.

And we ask that when you’re reading the stories — this year, next year, the year after that — that you remember the Golden Rule, and treat others with the respect due to everyone.