Quarters for Your Thoughts: Pick D.C.'s Design

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THESE DAYS, it seems like a lot of people are talking about voting for change in November. If you're a D.C. resident, though, you can vote for change right now in a way that's deliciously literal.

The Office of the Secretary of the District of Columbia is hosting an online vote to choose the design for D.C.'s entry in the U.S. Mint's 50 State Quarters program.

Note the title of said program. The District had to lobby for about 10 years to even get a coveted currency slot, since such things were apparently reserved for those stuck-up sections of the country with haughty stuff like congressional representation. Elitists.

Anyway, the choices have been narrowed, and they're all people: surveyor Benjamin Banneker, who helped to plot the land that would become the District in the 1790s; abolitionist and diplomat Frederick Douglass; and legendary musician Duke Ellington.

Who should win? Our colleague Marc Fisher put his vote in Douglass' column earlier this month, although he thought District leaders should have chosen an object rather than a person to symbolize the city. Douglass also won a reader poll here on readexpress.com earlier this month, with 43 percent of voters choosing him over Ellington (36 percent) and Banneker (20 percent).

Voting ends on June 18.