Today’s primary day in Massachusetts. In my small town, we still go to vote in the fire station. The ballot is a piece of regular folded paper. We mark a big “X” in pencil next to our candidate’s name, and place the ballot in a little slot before the nice lady cranks it into the strong box. The votes are counted by hand. Given all the shenanigans with voting machines lately, I’m not sure if I mind this system (of course, the opportunities for fraud are legion, but at least they won’t be made by nefarious computer nerds). I love voting. I think you should too.
Since it’s an election day, I’m going to get up on my soap box. Vote, damnit. I don’t care who you vote for, I don’t even care if you vote (gasp) Republican. Just vote. The best thing about this country is that we get to say who rules us. We hire and fire our leaders every couple of years. That we can do this at all is amazing. And it depresses the hell out of me that so few people get it. Turnout numbers are despicable. As this Globe columnist writes, more people are interested in 24 than they are in democracy.
I’m not naïve, and I know that the two-party system is rigged to keep the powerful in power. There are a lot of changes necessary. But guess what? None of them will happen if you don’t vote at all and turn your back on your responsibility to say who is in government.
Don’t like the way things are? Vote.
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1 comment:
i did my part by casting my ballot.
and you know...if i were given the responsibilty for revamping our nations voting system, i'd do it in the same manner you voted today. Everyone gets a pencil and a piece of paper. You check your box and all the ballots are handcounted.
old skool i know, but i just don't trust the crooks at Diebold who cooked the books in the 2000 and '04 elcetions.
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