Ballot

Dash is off school tomorrow because of the election, so if I'm going to say anything I suppose I'd better say it now.

I happened to be in California when the Bush v Gore election took place in 2000. I barely knew who was who at that point, but I was told that everyone in the office was Democrat except for one lone Republican. That was the year the count was drawn out over days and nobody knew for sure who had won for quite a while. And still, I didn't know enough to care one way or the other. I thought Gore looked a bit slimy, with his aquiline nose and his supercilious stare.

The next time there was an election, I was living in Texas and already blogging. I was disappointed but not terribly surprised when Bush won again.

By the election after that I was definitely more invested in the country, and more opinionated about who I thought should win, but also somewhat distracted by the fact that I had just, earlier that hour, given birth. That was a good day all round.

The next time there's an election, if I'm still in this country, I'll probably be allowed to vote in it. I am at the point where I would like to do that. I'd really like to be able to do that tomorrow, even if adding my voice to the clamour of voices in an already blue state wouldn't make any appreciable difference. I'd love to add my voice to those voting yes to Question 6 on the Maryland ballot - to allow same-sex marriage - and I could even have an opinion on questions 5 and 7 as well. (I suppose there might be other questions too, numbered 1 through 4, perhaps, that I haven't heard anything about, but if I was voting I think I'd probably make an effort to discover something about them.)

Mostly when it comes to politics I'm (as a friend said about themselves) an amoeba, but my sixth-grade teacher drummed into us the importance of voting, so I always do, even if I only know enough to know who I don't want. The Irish system of proportional representation is only slightly less complicated (but much fairer) than the US electoral colleges, but over there, so long as I gave the bad guys the last number on my ballot, I felt I'd done my duty.

So that's all I have to say about that. Please go out and vote for the good guys tomorrow, if you can.