As I’ve said many times before, this is my first time voting. There are some things that I’m now realizing that you never take notice of before you’re a registered voter:
*You receive a whole lot more junk mail when you’re a registered voter
*You have to vote for more than one person
*The information can be overwhelming
Since this is a monumental event for me (and I still can’t understand why so many people aren’t excited - but maybe b/c the shiney - newness of their voter registration cards has worn off) and I am a little scared of the process, I called my sister and asked if she would go with me to vote.
I considered doing the “vote by mail” thing but I didn’t get my request off in time, so I’m going to an early polling location on Sunday afternoon with her. We were intending to go tonight, but that was until we realized the early polling locations closed at 6:00pm and we decided to go at 5:52 :).
I’m actually glad for the extra time because it gives me a chance to really go over the “instructions” (sample ballot) that came in the mail. MY GOD I had no idea that there were going to be people besides George W. Bush and John Kerry on there. I’m using this extra time as a “cram session” to figure out who these people are, what their roles will be, and what their positions are.
On another note, I received something in the mail a few weeks ago that I dismissed as more political junk mail, but I didn’t throw it away and I’m actually very glad I didn’t. It’s actually a “Non Partison Handbook for New Voters” from Stanford University.
Apparently, I was selected at random from a list of newly registered voters to review the information contained therein to possibly help get more young people involved with the voting process and so far, it is awesome.
It’s the first time when I can actually look at the candidates without all the superfluous banter about why the other one eats {expletive deleted}. It explains why my vote counts, the political process, what one has to do in order to become president, and the election process.
Not only that, it introduces you to each candidate and their stands on the issues (unbiased - no fixing it to make one guy look like the bad guy or anything). I may not agree with some of their stands, but at least it’s presented in a non-partison fashion. I also noticed the “20 Million Loud” logo throughout the presentation. I also appreciate that they have young people asking questions that are on our minds and getting a direct answer from the parties…
They even collected each of their political ads, recordings from their speeches, even some political games…this is really neat and hopefully it will be distributed to a wider audience and hopefully that wider audience will take the time to view it.