選挙日

Nov. 7 was Election Day. Everyone who voted will get a sticker that says "I voted" before leaving the voting booth. My husband and I proudly wore that sticker to work that morning because we studied the materials and did our civil duty. To my surprise, I think only 3 other people out of 16 in my team voted that day. We had a team meeting later and we chatted about election day. Some people were turned off by all the money wasted on campaign and ads. Some people found it hard to pick from the lesser of 2 evils. Some people just felt they don't know enough to make an informative vote and worried that they might end up giving their votes to the wrong people.

So there was a brief discussion on whether it is better to vote based on what we know or not vote at all since we may not fully understand all the issues and possible impacts? While my husband and I spent the Sunday evening reading up all the measures and candidates information, the best we could do was to form an opinion of Yes or No and bring that 'opinion sheet' to cast our votes. But I do believe that if you don't even plan on spending time to understand the election materials, it's better that you don't vote at all. It's ok to vote if you at least care who or which should be a winner. But again, if you have no opinion, just leave it blank. It really should not be that complicated.

But it really sucks when some of the more tricky measures use words like "this measure will be funded with no new taxes" to appeal to voters for a Yes vote, when in fact it will be funded with issuing bonds making us forever more in debts. So not to sound discriminating, maybe setting some educational requirements along with age will be the way to go for future elections, as some discerning abilities are necessary to not sway the outcome towards those special interest groups who funded those props for gains.