Monday, October 24, 2016

I Voted Today

After months and months of endless campaigning, it's finally coming to a close.  I've been an absentee voter for awhile so I got my ballot a few days ago, pulled out some of the "official voting guides" that have deluged my mailbox, and worked my way through the ballot.  I honestly felt a bit like this guy...


And like him, complaining is the only thing I have left, so I've gotta vote so I can at least continue complaining.  And I suspect I'll have a lot of complaining to do as part of the loyal opposition over the next four years.

Here in So Cal the voting wasn't easy.  This was the first time I've ever seen that it took two sheets to list all the races and initiatives.  If you think about it, it is a rather patriotic thing to do.  It can be easy to see it as a tiny, microscopic drop in a vast sea, but still, it's really the excercise of the right.  The ability to declare that you are invested in the system.

As I had posted here before and like many, the most important thing to me on the ballot was the vote for the Presidency.  If you've been reading at all you know I could not, would not vote for Hillary whom I view as a congenital liar and a criminal of the first order.  And I just could not bring myself to vote for Trump.  At the end of the day, I could get past a lot of the things he has said and some of his behavior.  But when it is all tallied up, he is just too volatile, too unpredictable, and really just too ignorant.  I mean, he could have won it.  But he got immersed in petty issues and let others get to him.  That really worried me and led me to withhold my vote.  So I wrote someone in.  It doesn't matter who.  And since I live in the reliably Democratic state of California, my vote doesn't really count anyway.  So I feel like pretty true to myself for not voting for either, and I will be able to credibly criticize the criminal for the next four years.  Oh yeah, another thing.  I didn't vote for either Democratic candidate for Senate either.  I thought them both incredibly weak.  But incumbancy being what it is, one of them will probably be the Senator from California for the rest of my life.  Now that's a sad thought!

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