Not Voting

posted at 2:10 pm
on Nov. 4, 2008

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I was all set to post a blog post of superiority today.  Because I’ve been voting all over the place, and plan do to some more voting around here soon.

I voted for U.S. president (absentee ballot), in the Canadian election, and plan to vote for city council here on Nov. 15.

And I was feeling, let’s face it, sad but also a little smug, because of all the people I know who didn’t vote.  Someone I know (no names, I’m going easy on them) was too busy on Canadian election day, and many of the U.S. citizens I know here in Canada didn’t get registered in time to vote, if they even bothered to try.

Side note here: For a U.S. citizen, your absentee ballot goes to the state you most recently lived in.  Which for me is California, and to be frank, I might as well have balled up my ballot, stuffed it in a bottle and thrown it in the ocean for all the influence it will have in California.  If I had only used to live in Ohio or Pennsylvania or somewhere that a vote might have more impact…. Anyhow, because I can’t vote in any of the other California measures or elections or ballots, my vote is pretty near useless.  Ah well.  Still, I did my duty.

But then recently, sitting around with some friends, I realized that the unthinkable had happened: I’d missed an election.  Turns out there was a by-election in my riding, and I had misunderstood and thought it was for a neighbouring riding.  (There was, in fact, also a by-election in the next riding over, hence my confusion.)  And suddenly, I went from being safely smug to being a non-voting asshole.  Oh no! Don’t let this happen to you.  Vote today.

(I plan to make it up by recycling a little more styrofoam and replacing two lightbulbs with CFLs.)

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