I Voted Today!

Really, the title says it all - I took advantage of the awesome early voting setup here in our county and I voted today. Fast and easy and, as an added and unexpected bonus, I even got to have a short conversation with a veteran of the United States Navy. As I walked outside, I was feeling quite proud of fulfilling my civic duty; I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with the clean, fresh air of liberty.

(Then, after all the poetry subsided and the music died down, I realized that my keys were securely locked inside my car - no good deed goes unpunished...)

I don't know how crowded the average voter's ballot will be this election season but here in my precinct we have a whole slew of candidates running. We get to vote on the

three Federal races: US President/Vice-President, US Senator and US Representative;
nineteen State races: Railroad Commissioner, 3 state Supreme Court Justices, 4 Court of Criminal Appeals Judges, State Board of Education Member, State Senator, State Representative and 8 District Judges;
four County races: Sheriff, Tax Assesor, J.P., Constable (all running unopposed) and
two School District Places. I'm not familiar enough with law enforcement to know why one county needs a Sheriff and a Justice of the Peace and a Constable. Does that seem redundant to anybody else? (but I digress...)

All together that's 28 decisions I had to make. Of course the 4 running unopposed only made me decide "Do I vote in this race or not?" - the short answer "No". They didn't answer questionnaires from either non-partisan group whose voting guides I was using, so I didn't vote in their silly little sham "election". Seriously, how do you lose when you run unopposed? All it takes is one person hitting the button to vote "Straight Ticket" for your party and you're in. Those races were decided in the primaries back in March.

You might think the whole point of this post is "Go Vote!". If that's what you think, you're wrong. The whole point of this post is "Educate yourself about the candidates and then go vote your conscience!"

And by the way, if you don't bother to vote then for crying out loud Don't Bother to Complain!