One week from today are the mid-term elections and they’re important. If you don’t know anything about them, it’s not too late to read up on the issues and familiarize yourself with the candidates. If you live in California (which I do) and you’re a registered voter, you’ve undoubtedly received the nearly 100 page voter guide. I don’t have time to read it either, but I’m still going to vote on the big issues.
Exercising your right to vote is not something you should take lightly. In an age when our democracy is looking more and more undemocratic, it’s important to remember that your voice counts. If the last presidential election didn’t teach you that, then you might as well just go back to sleep. I don’t know who has better ideas about how to proceed in Iraq, but I know that if we don’t acknowledge global warming, if we don’t talk about the fact that our government’s system of checks and balances is failing miserably and if we don’t protect our civil liberties, everyone now and into the future will be paying dearly.
And one more thing…Write your elected officials about how our election process has become effectively privatized by a small number of companies, some of which are so blatant in their political associations, it’s disturbing that more people aren’t screaming about it. Ars Technica has a great article about this issue along with a publicly available PDF that spells out how to steal an election along with a form letter you can use to contact your elected officials. It took me all of 5 minutes.
