The scene: the old Guilford County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro, NC.The reason: early voting.
Half of the legally eligible members of The House of Gordon cast their ballot Thursday in early voting. 45 minutes total from entrance to exit. Everything ran smoothly with no glitches. Add one vote in the "Hope" column for a certain senator from the great state of Illinois. Add one vote to send Greensboro's state senator Kay Hagan to Washington to oust the worthless Elizabeth Dole. Once all the races were voted upon, a full few minutes were spent just staring at the electronic voting screen. Clinton, Gore, Kerry, none of those votes really brought upon a welled-up sense of pride and joy that staring at that "Barack Obama / Joe Biden, Democrat" box did.
Whoever your candidate is, whatever your affiliation may be, whatever your views are, just VOTE.
1 comment:
Prelude to an honest question:
I don't know the in's and out's for every state's absentee ballot laws. I also don't know the in's and out's of every states's early voting laws. I am familiar with Ohio's absentee ballot laws which basically state: short of saying "I'm too freaking lazy to vote on election day", you can get an absentee ballot. That may not be the official wording, but suffice it to say, its is and always has been pretty easy to get an absentee ballot in Ohio. This would allow even the most disenfranchised voter to cast his or her ballot with virtually no effort...okay a little more effort than having a Papa John's pizza delivered, but you get the point. I absentee voted this year because we are moving around election day and were not sure what our actual address would be on ED. I had no problem walking into my local board of elections and requesting a ballot in Mid-September and having my ballot mailed to me after Septemeber 30. Not only did I get my ballot, but I had virtually all the time I needed to research every candidate and issue up for my vote. I found a website for a majority of the electible posistions on the ballot and made thoughful decisions whenever possible.
Now...Honest question:
Why is early voting necessary?
Presuming that other state's absentee laws are similar to Ohio's and your are as concerned about voter fraud as some would want you to be...why not just absentee vote? You can do it early and no one but you can stop you.
It seems to me that allowing early voting is just a ploy for politicians to say "Look at us...we care." When actually they just duplicated somthing that was already in place.
According to the Census Bureau...approximately 60% of eligible voters cast a ballot in 2000. The number "skyrocketed" to 64% in 2004. I think we could agree that those were 2 of the most hotly contested elections in our liftime. (I'm assuming nobody was around for Adams/Jefferson in 1800). I don't remember the exact figures, but of the people ELIGIBLE to REGISTER, only something like 80% of those eligible even bothered to register.
So...when possibly over 1/5 of the voting public doesn't even care enough to register...and 1/3 that care enough to register don't bother to vote...and the laws were already in place to make it as easy as possible to vote...
...why, again is early voting necessary?
Love,
Duke
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