This morning I woke up a 5 AM (Kelly woke me up) to head over to the local polling location to be a part of history. I went out to vote. Every time you go out to vote you are a part of history. I arrived to the polling location at 5:30 AM to discover 30 people already waiting. It was a diverse group of people in both age, race and ethnicity. I was even asked "Do you speak English" by one of the election workers. I laughed on the inside. The lady just wanted to know if I wanted if I wanted a ballot in English or Spanish. It took me twenty minutes to vote on my "paper ballot." That really surprised me because I've used a voting machine in Ohio the last four times I have voted. When I left I noticed the line was about an hour plus wait.
I had friends wait over two hours to vote this weekend. My grandparents in their 80's went and voted early. My mom, brother and sister waited in the rain in Florida. It's nice to see people finally taking the time to do what so many people world wide value and many times fight over......the right to vote. I met a group from Brazil last year and they told people how it's manditory to vote in their country. They said you risk be hired or fired if you don't vote! Wow!
I hope everyone takes the time to go out and vote. It's really important. Choose a candidate that you really believe in or agree with their goals and aspirations. It's not about what your friends or family believe in, it's about what YOU believe in. So choose the candidates that best reflect your beliefs and aspirations.
You can see I feel that voting is important. I had a friend who wouldn't talk to his co-workers on Election Day if they didn't vote. Voting is important, hopefully the country will really make it important in the future by either giving people the day off or giving people time off to vote because of the long waits people have to go through.
I leave everyone with this. A former boss of mine had a great comment years ago when he was asked why he voted. -"I like to complain. If you don't vote, then you can't complain."
