Monday, November 01, 2004
i've been disenfranchised
I made my final decision and cast my vote on Friday. I have carefully weighed all the alternatives and voted amongst my three alternatives: 1) George W. Bush - head of economic recovery mismanagement and ill-conceived war-starter, 2) John Kerry - chief Bush-criticizer, decision-dodger and political game-player, and 3) let everyone else decide, save myself two hours of waiting in line at the library and spend the evening with my family instead.
Can you believe that we are expected to wait in line for two hours to vote? If this isn't being "disenfranchised" (whatever that means), I don't know what is! I mean, let's face it, not all of us are so politically motivated that we are willing to sacrifice an entire evening after a long day at work to cast a meaningless vote. We all know Bush is going to win Texas anyway. Neither candidate even bothers to campaign here, even though there are 22 million people living in Texas. Every other word out of Kerry's mouth is either Ohio or Wisconsin (he even mentioned the Green Bay Packers' storied "Lambert" Field by "name"), but Texas? Never a word.
But the worst part about this is that it changes the dynamic of the entire election. No longer should political polls be concerned with "registered voters who intend to vote." They should only count "registered voters who intend to vote, who are willing to waste an entire evening standing in line, who don't work and can therefore vote during off-hours, or who have so much free time that they have no problem standing in two-hour-long lines at the library."
I realize that election day is not yet here. Sure, I missed early voting, but I can still actually vote on election day if I decide I want to brave the four-hour lines on November 2. Maybe I can even utilize that rule that says your employer has to let you leave to vote. Or maybe if the Texas race ends up being close, I'll just contact one of the tens of thousands of lawyers hired by both candidates with the sole purpose of contesting the election. This is going to be a fun election year.
So I'm sorry to say that it looks like my Presidential election voting streak is coming to an end. Now, according to P. Diddy, I am going to die.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 11/01/2004
Can you believe that we are expected to wait in line for two hours to vote? If this isn't being "disenfranchised" (whatever that means), I don't know what is! I mean, let's face it, not all of us are so politically motivated that we are willing to sacrifice an entire evening after a long day at work to cast a meaningless vote. We all know Bush is going to win Texas anyway. Neither candidate even bothers to campaign here, even though there are 22 million people living in Texas. Every other word out of Kerry's mouth is either Ohio or Wisconsin (he even mentioned the Green Bay Packers' storied "Lambert" Field by "name"), but Texas? Never a word.
But the worst part about this is that it changes the dynamic of the entire election. No longer should political polls be concerned with "registered voters who intend to vote." They should only count "registered voters who intend to vote, who are willing to waste an entire evening standing in line, who don't work and can therefore vote during off-hours, or who have so much free time that they have no problem standing in two-hour-long lines at the library."
I realize that election day is not yet here. Sure, I missed early voting, but I can still actually vote on election day if I decide I want to brave the four-hour lines on November 2. Maybe I can even utilize that rule that says your employer has to let you leave to vote. Or maybe if the Texas race ends up being close, I'll just contact one of the tens of thousands of lawyers hired by both candidates with the sole purpose of contesting the election. This is going to be a fun election year.
So I'm sorry to say that it looks like my Presidential election voting streak is coming to an end. Now, according to P. Diddy, I am going to die.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 11/01/2004
