A Right, A Duty, An Honor

I voted this morning. And I teared up twice while doing it. I may be a dork, but I'm a patriotic one.

I had planned to vote early since I drive right by a voting site on the way to work from Landon's daycare, but I hadn't had time so far this week. This morning I knew I had nothing waiting on my desk, so I pulled into the Randalls parking lot at 8:15 hoping there wasn't much of a line. When I walked in the place looked deserted, I used my handy dandy blackberry to google the early voting information to make sure that this site did in fact open at 7 am. Assured that I was correct, I began to wander to the back of the store in search of voting booths when I saw a hand waving at me from inside the cereal aisle. I followed the enthusiastic beckoning to find a friendly senior citizen sitting on a stool, he wished me a happy morning and asked if I'd like vote. I showed him my registration card and was directed to another friendly senior citizen named Bob who asked me to sign my name; he then pointed me to yet another friendly senior who gave me a little print out with my special electronic voting booth access code. Along the way I was warned by two different smiling senior citizens that I should not put my "I voted" sticker on my leather jacket as it would "just ruin it!" - I thanked each of them for their advice and cracked up as I pictured my grandmas telling me the same thing. By the time I stood in front of my little voting booth I had spoken with at least six smiling people who all seemed tickled that I had come out to vote this morning. I entered in my little code and the first thing that greeted me was my Selection of Presidential Candidate. I turned the little dial to Barack Obama/Joseph Biden, pressed Enter, and my eyes promptly filled with tears.

It's not just that I'm proud to vote for a candidate I believe in (my first presidential election was 2004 and I was voting against a candidate more than I was voting for one), and it's not just that I think Obama will be a great president, one who will thoughtfully and intelligently consider things before acting, it's because it is such a f*cking honor to get to vote at all. The fact that we can all voice our opinions, that we can vocally disagree, that we can choose our leaders- well, that's a pretty wonderful thing. Both of my grandfathers fought in Vietnam, and it's an honor to them to exercise my right to have a say in who will steer this country through the next four years.

So go vote. The idea of McCain/Palin winning this election may make my stomach churn, but I would at least like that selection to have been made by a majority of all U.S. citizens rather than the smaller percentage who usually vote. And if you're like JP and fundamentally at odds with both presidential candidates, at least research your local representatives and propositions, they often have more of a say in your daily lives than those on the national ticket.

And, just as a general public service announcement, please for the love of God, stop forwarding blatantly false or grossly misleading political emails. Make use of Google, snopes.com, and factcheck.org before clicking "Send" - I've had to request my name be removed from multiple people's forward lists because I found the contents of the email so offensive (one told me that as Christians we should fear all Muslims in America and our goal should be to drive them out - I try very hard to respect other people's views, but I will admit my opinion of the person who so eagerly forwarded that to everyone she knew is permanently negatively affected). The sharing of information is important, the sharing of false information is decidedly not.

In eleven days our next President will be selected by our fellow citizens, go be a part of that decision!