Exercise Your Right to Vote

There are a lot of people who don’t exercise their right to vote. I find this disgraceful. Apparently, they don’t care about our predecessors who fought so hard to give us the right to vote. And to keep our country a democracy, where the people vote to determine who will represent them in government. Yes, even with all the corruption in government and politics, we are still a democratic nation. We still have the right to vote.

It is my belief that we should do all we can to elect the best people and make our voices heard. I feel it is our civic duty, as a citizen of this great nation, to vote. To be honest with you, it quite irks me when people blow off their duty to vote. I have always taken voting very seriously. Yes, it does take quite a bit of time and effort to study up on the candidates and issues on the ballot. But, voting is a serious responsibility which should not be taken lightly.

I’ve heard it said that if you don’t vote for one of the “major candidates” that you are wasting your vote. That’s bunch of malarkey. The only time that your vote is wasted, is when you don’t vote.

I always study up on the candidates and issues and select who I think is the best option out of the field of candidates available. I do not select candidates based upon their popularity. In fact, in this last election a couple of days ago, I voted for a candidate who I knew was probably not going to make it to the general election. But, I felt he was the best choice. He ended up only receiving less than 12% of the votes.

Perhaps if everybody who felt that if they didn’t vote for one of the “major candidates” they were wasting their vote, actually voted for the best choice instead of the most popular, we might elect some of the more obscure candidates, who would do a better job. And better represent us and our beliefs.

Instead, those elected are usually those with the best television commercial, the most money, the most ties to influential people, etc. And that isn’t right. Look at our last presidential election. That is a perfect example. We now have Korihor, a.k.a. Obama in office because Oprah Winfrey and the media were able to pull the wool over enough people’s eyes to convince them to vote for a puppet who would follow their agenda. The media is very powerful and people are easily swayed.

While we are still a democracy, and have the right to vote, please exercise that right. We all need to do our civic duty and vote. Please don’t let all of the people who have died in defending this nation, and our rights, to have died in vain.

That’s my two cents.