WHY SHOULD I VOTE?
“Vote early, vote often’ (quote often attributed to Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley 1955-1976)
In the Great State of Indiana I can vote by mail (some nonsense about being old and all that). Even got an unsolicited, mass mailing from state Republican Committee with built-in Absentee Ballot application. [Ain’t we life-long Republicans supposed to be against that this year?] All I have to do is ask a ballot be mailed to me which I then mail back. That’s assuming it gets to me and gets back to wherever mail-in ballots go to die – I mean be counted. From all reports if I don’t start and finish the process quickly it doesn’t matter whether or not I did.
[SIDEBAR: There is absolutely no reason to believe voting by mail bears inherent fraud. This is a line of desperation to create discord and distrust. Many states have used the process for years with imperceptible degree of misconduct. This past week Post Office sent reminder to vote by mail early. In this observation of 50 years voting, the problem is not in the casting, but in the counting.]
That said, I’d have to mail vote soon. In current situation mail from our home mailbox to Clay County Court House (about ¾ mi.) has to first go to Indy and then back.
The last time I made the effort to vote in person was 2012 election. As it happened this coincided with our wedding anniversary: and coincided with my once again being in the hospital. The doctor wanted me to stay and do a heart cath. I insisted on going home because I wanted to vote. Oh, yeah, because of that anniversary thing, too.
The polling place was in City Hall. There was no way I had strength to walk up steps, and they had no accommodations for we old folks. Ended up not voting. It didn’t matter. What I discovered is that my lone vote would have changed nothing. Nobody for whom I would have voted won.
Voting is a Right for which a great many people have paid a great price, and should be so honored. Some will say it is my ‘obligation’ to vote. It is not. Voting is a Right. not obligation. And as my father said, “you have no obligation to exercise every right you possess”.
Since 2012 not voting has become something of my way of protest against a system which does not now, and may have never worked. I have no money, know of no anti-vote group to join, and am much less able to march up City Hall steps than in 2012. The only way I have of ‘demonstrating’ my disgust with it all it to affirmatively refuse to vote.
I have it on best of authority that ‘the fix is in’
I live in a state which always votes Republican
I have no reasons to think any one vote matters
I am not sure non-Republican votes are counted
I have no hope for nation once known as America
I am not alone in this
Why should I vote?
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