Vote. Just DO IT.

V O T E

It is our duty.
It is our privilege.

When you vote - thank those who spend such long hours at our polling locations to make it possible, our election judges. 


They arrive by 6:30 in the morning, in the cold and dark.  The polls are open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. (or whenever the last people in line at 8 p.m. finish voting) and they have to stay long after the polls close to complete their job.  There are NO 8 hour shifts; it is a very, very long work day.  They do their jobs efficiently, and cheerfully.

Please, take a moment to thank them.

If you have the opportunity, help a friend or neighbor who needs assistance getting to the polls.  If you know someone who is considering NOT voting, encourage them to join you, wherever you fall on the political spectrum.

This is for the moment, still OUR government.  For myself, I will be thinking of those who are sacrificing for the safety of the rest of us by serving in our armed forces, sometimes far longer than they had expected.  I will be thinking of all those who served in the past, to make it possible for me - for US - to be able to vote today.

I will be thinking of the people who have suffered from fraud and ponzi schemes, many of them originating here in Minnesota, because of lax regulation and insufficiently funded regulators, on the pretext of making government pro-business and pro-wealthy few, more important than government being pro-consumer and pro-majority of our population, to the detriment of nearly all of us through the recent economic near collapse.

I will be thinking of the individuals profiting from the conservative Tea Party movement by peddling lies and Moral Panic, like Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh.  Individuals who have gotten so very wealthy off of promoting positions, especially economic policies, which are anything but mainstream, and 'selling' misinformation and disinformation which does not hold up well to the scrutiny of fact checking.

I will be thinking of the attempts to make this an auction instead of an election by some members of the most affluent 2% of our citizens and the corporations they dominate or control.  I will be thinking very hard about the need for transparency, about disclosure of those donors to the political process.

I will be thinking of the need to adequately fund our court system, one of the few things that the conservatives have not - so far - tried to privatize, as one of the most important parts of our government.

And I will be thinking of all the elderly people with whom I have spoken in the past couple of weeks about this election, older people who believe passionately in the importance of voting, no matter how difficult it might be for them because of the infirmities of age.

Vote! Vote passionately, like our seniors! Make the commitment to be part of this country; don't put it off on the shoulders of other people.  Thank you for doing so.