It is Election Day. VOTE!

[catsittingstill]

This is a great post by autographedcat (no relation.)

He makes many good points.  So did Vixy in this post, which is particularly relevant not just to women but to any group that has had to struggle for their vote.

The League of Women Voters has an informational site at www.Vote411.org if you're not sure whether you're registered or where to go to vote, or who is on the ballot.

VOTE!  Pass it on.

Comments

[keris]

I won't be voting for quite a while, we only get to do national votes in the UK once every 5 years or so (5 years is the maximum term, but they are looking at making it the standard term). Since my area didn't have local elections this year we might have them next year, but they don't influence national policy at all. However, my vote is likely to make more difference there.

The only time I haven't voted since I was able to do so was in 1997 when I was working in Germany. I was told, incorrectly as it happened, that they couldn't send me a postal vote so my only option was by proxy; then the proxy vote had to be signed by my employer, who was in Switzerland, and it never got through. Not that it actually made any difference (my area is 'safe' Tory, the incumbent gets around twice as many votes as the rest put together), but I was still annoyed, especially when I found that they were wrong about the postal vote.

I was disappointed that I never got to vote for the MP for my area when I was a kid, by the time I was old enough to vote and the next election came round I had moved out of the area. I would have liked to have given him my support, as he had me when I was at school (directly: he was known for caring a lot about his constituents and I knew a lot of people whose causes he took up, especially against local bureaucracy, and I was one). Sir Bernard Braine, and he is still missed.

[catsittingstill]

I was disappointed that I never got to vote for the MP for my area when I was a kid,

That is a pity. He sounds like someone special.

I salute your voting record; it is much better than mine, as I was stupid about this when I was young.

Then George Bush Jr got elected and I swore to myself that I was going to vote in every. single. election. if I had to crawl under sniper fire and drag a fire extinguisher with me to put the polling place out before I could vote.

And I have. And I will.

[keris]

He really was. He's the one I always think of when I get into a "all politicians should be shot" snit, since he was an exception there are probably more.

I learnt about voting when I was at university. We had student union elections which, while not of national importance, did affect things like whether people had sit-ins. I always remember being asked, after voting, by a bunch of rugger players (think quarterbacks, both for size and stereotypical amount of brains), if I had voted "the right way". "Of course," I answered, and didn't tell them that my idea of "the right way" didn't include their candidate. I wasn't going to illuminate them, especially as he lost...