Hopelessly De-Voted

Here is something that I rarely admit: I am a bad citizen. I don’t always exercise my right to vote. In fact, for many years after moving to Florida I didn’t even register to vote. And when I do vote, I usually vote only on major contests. I believe that inherent in our right to vote is the right not to vote. Many people disagree with me on that. [Some people would even call me stupid not to vote.] Still, I think a non-voter is generally less dangerous than an uninformed voter.

I did vote this year… for [or against, depending on how you look at it] President/VP, state constitutional amendments, and a couple others, but not County Supervisor of Cuttlefish Bones [I made that title up, of course, to illustrate the point]. On those races I remain uninformed. Even in the Presidential race I was less-informed than I might have been. Florida had 13 choices on the ballot plus a space for write-in candidates. [Sadly, "None of the Above" is still not an option.] More than half of those I still know nothing about and yet I’m confident that my vote counted exactly as I hoped it would.

I dutifully wore a “Gandalf for President” button on election day, but I took advantage the early voting option. The hours for early voting were originally [and ridiculously] 10am to 6pm, but were increased to 7am to 7pm. I stood in line for over 90 minutes on Saturday morning with an interesting cross-section of the community — college kids to senior citizens. A young man near me in line got a phone call from a friend who had come to the same polling place at 6:45 that day and waited 2 hours to vote. The media had reported all week that some people waited as much as 4 hours to vote. I understand why so many people refer to this a “historic” election [um, aren't they all?], but for me it was the voters that made it so more than the candidates.

And, for all that “change” was bandied about during the campaigns, I really don’t expect anything to change quickly. That would be true no matter who had won. But, as always, the best thing about election day for me: the end of the campaigns!