Political Promises

Today were the primary elections in our neighborhood. Our polling place was so close I could have walked if I had chosen to.

Last night the hubby made reminder calls to all of the kids about the election for a new council member on the reservation. They are lucky enough to vote in two elections!

This morning the voting age son was complaining that he didn't want to drive to the res to vote after work. It was too far. It was too hard.Blah, blah, blah. I reminded him of all the financial perks the tribe offers him and said that having to vote once in a while wasn't a hard pay back. (Well, that and getting summoned for jury duty about once a month. It doesn't always pay to be one of the community members with a clean police record. We get a lot of jury summons in our family.) His reply was "they don't have to drive to my house to deliver my percap check." Such a logical child.

After he left for work I started thinking that maybe the tribe should only give percap checks to those community members who made the effort to vote. They'd either get a much higher voter turnout or have lots of left over money to use for more projects. Or maybe they could pass it on to the voters. What a great idea!

This got me thinking about other elections.

Why isn't voting required?

Why is it only an option?

What do you think would happen if we were all forced to vote? Everyone over 18 rounded up every election day and escorted to the polls (at least we'd be able to find them that way).

Would this be a positive thing? Probably much better voter turnout than the measly 20% that they were reporting today.

The more I thought about it though the more I started thinking maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I think being forced to vote would probably end up bad. Some individuals would be voting for people they knew nothing about, or for issues that looked good on the surface but really weren't when you dug deeper, or randomly drawing black lines just to complete the voting process that was required.

But wait! Isn't that what is happening now in some cases?

Every time I vote, I leave the polls vowing that I will come a little better prepared the next time and then the next time comes and I still manage to see names on the ballot that I really don't recognize or don't know enough about.

Shame on me!

I need to appreciate the opportunity that I have to vote a little bit more. Just think of those countries where people actually put themselves in harm's way in order to be able to cast their vote and have a say in their government or have no say at all.
I promise to appreciate the opportunity that I have to vote a little bit more.

I need to get a little bit more excited about voting. At the presidential primary earlier this year there was a young lady there who had just turned 18 and was able to vote for the very first time. She was so Excited. She was dancing and yelling and celebrating big time.
I promise to get a little bit more excited about voting. (Like not count voting as my thing I really didn't want to do today, but did anyway.)

I need to do my homework a little bit better before I vote. Perhaps I could start by reading all the fliers that come in the mail before I throw them away or do a little research of my own on the computer.
I promise to do my homework a little bit better before I vote.

There you have it -
more political promises
that I promise to keep.

Today I am thankful

that I was born in the United States of America.
for a husband that washes dishes when it's his turn.
Grocery Stores where I can purchase just about anything I could ever want.

The new thing I learned today is that it is important to know which political party the candidates you plan on voting for belong to, at least in the primary election.