Democracy Is Coming to the USA

Election season is like Trick or Treat for adults, except we registered voters seem to end up with a lot of Mary Janes and saltwater taffy and way too few Dove Bars and Reese's Cups. 

Thirty-two days from now, unless you've availed yourself of early voiting or an absentee ballot, we'll be knee-deep in big muddy hitting levers, blackening circles, chopping chads (and jeremys in Florida) as the will of some of the people (at party nominating conventions this summer) is transformed into the will of all the people. The miracle of democracy, coming to a ballot box near you.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard ." Sing it, H. L. I'll hold the hymnal while you turn the page. Of course, in this country for the most part, hardly anyone has an opinion on how well democracy works since we rarely get above thirty percent turnout by registered voters in an 'off-year' (= non-Presidential) election.

Living in one of the thirteen original colonies (I still think we should get silk jackets, have colonial colors and maybe a secret handshake), I'm watching the wheels as I'll have the opportunity to vote for a state representative, a state Senator, a United States Senator, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a parsnip in a bear tree, to say nothing of a slew of State Constitutional officers, culminating in a new Governor. Plus, in my town we'll have a local referendum question, though the pygmy pony initiative failed to make the ballot. Again.

You'll have about the same range and scope of choices where you live-but only if you choose to vote. The same folks who'll sit on hold for twenty minutes for a call-in radio talk show can't take ten minutes to go vote on Election Day. Maybe they think you have to pay a fee to cast a ballot, or lack a calendar that tells them when Election Day is. 

The same people who call Dancing with the Stars or America's Got Talent hundreds of times to get their favorite advanced to the next round don't think it's appropriate to have an opinion on the direction their state or nation should take.

If you don't choose, you lose. And don't tell me you don't have enough information. In this country at this time in our history, if there's one thing we have TOO much of, it's information. The trick is to turn it into knowledge you can use to make informed decisions. Because that's what we're lacking....
-bill kenny