Election Day

            Today is Election Day. This blog has not approached politics in the past because yours truly wants the blog to be one of the rare internet places where politics are not included. Your politics are your business and if you disagree with me, you are wrong. Still, your business is your business and mine is mine.

          A few notes then on voting and elections past.

          I held public office for eight months in California, as a member of the Ventura County Board of Education. I was appointed to fill an unexpired term. The representative for my area moved away for family reasons.

          As a Board member I studied each question scheduled to come before the Board so I’d be able to ask good questions during the public session. Then, after the discussion, I decided what my vote would be. This irritated the other four members because they couldn’t figure out how I might vote on an item.

          That’s what happens when you consider items individually instead of as a part of your personal political agenda.

          I enjoyed the work but I did not run to retain the seat when election time came. There were family matters that would likely take me out of the area for much of the time immediately before Election Day and I felt it would be wrong for me to be away at that time.

          Then there was the cost. I got an estimate that the Elder Campaign War Chest would need about $30,000 in order to campaign for a job that paid $3,300 a year. That’s bad math.

There was a great deal of legally-required paperwork mumbo-jumbo that candidates had to do and I’d have had to find people to volunteer to fill all the legally-required positions on this massive campaign staff candidates must have.

I didn’t run and I’ve been happy ever since.

So my hat is off to those who submit to the requirements of campaigning for public office. They must want it more than I did.

 

I have written my own name in on the ballot several times. The choices for governor in California have been very grim in recent cycles, so I enjoyed writing in a name I knew I could trust. This caused consternation the first time I entered a write-in because I asked how to do it. I was told the machine would not accept my ballot, which effectively meant I could not vote for the American of my choice.

I raised that issue and the guy running the polling location told me to submit the ballot and we’d find out together how the machine handled the matter. The submission went just fine and I received one (1) vote for governor that year.

I’ve done the same thing several times since.

 

          Everyone says that Ohio is a swing state this time around. Well, okay. I’m a little old for this, but I’ll go to the park and sit on a swing for a while before I vote. A citizen, after all, must do his or her duty on Election Day.

 

          I hope all of you vote or have already voted. The process itself is more important than the outcome, really. It is probably good for your health to vote. It must be or they wouldn’t encourage people in Chicago to vote so often.

 

          Thanks for reading.