Woggy Project #7: 2008 General Election

Ok, because I always like to achieve a little balance in my life, I thought I'd try and complement big, old, difficult to complete Woggy Project #6 with a small, young, simple but important article in the current woggy queue. And that is to properly prepare and then actually vote in the upcoming November election.

For those of you who find it difficult to vote, I hope this may inspire you to finally take action. If it is, say, too late for you to register wherever you currently live, why not take initiative today to register now anyway, so you will have one less obstacle standing in your way for the next election that rolls around. If you are registered but seldom vote, why not take some time now to consider and decide on at least a few candidates or initiatives you can get behind, and make a date in your calendar to vote on November 4th (or send your ballot in by mail for you mail-in lovers). You don't have to vote for every position and initiative on the ballot. You can always leave parts blank. But if you find someone or something you do believe in (and there must be at least one you can get behind somewhere!) you can at least make your small difference by standing up and making your thoughts heard!

Besides being a great lover of the in-person voting process (although my county will sadly be going mostly mail-in any year now boo!! hiss!!), I am a person who usually takes my duty to vote quite seriously, and generally try to attend and vote completely in every major and primary election around. Of course, in my region, where the initiative process is not only standard but is a veritable epidemic, voting even in the smallest off-year primary can require considerable study ahead of time to familiarize oneself with all of the issues. And as you can see here with this two-page excerpt of a multi-page extended explanation of just one of the initiatives up this year (yes, thankfully they have an abbreviated version for those of us without a free year to prepare), preparing for all of these issues can sometimes be quite a chore. Nonetheless, I usually spend at least an afternoon each election time to figure out where I stand on all the issues and candidates. And where I can't decide, my local environmental club usually can help me figure out where to draw the line on the remaining undecided-on few.

I admit, the past two minor elections, I did not participate. One was a political statement on my part, as somehow my state had ended up with both a caucus (counted) and a primary (didn't count) for the party presidential primary. I went to the caucus but not the primary. The other recent local primary I ended up not attending because I put off my day of study again and again until it was too late, and I eventually decided on election day to forego the election just this once. However, as I think we all know, this election coming up is far too significant to avoid for that reason.

Yes we can.
-Barack Obama

While I have not yet opened this year's voter's pamphlet (er, except to take the above photos...) I know that besides the presidential election, on which I have been thoroughly decided most of this year, there are many important local initiatives I want to be sure to vote on next month in an informed fashion. I believe I will succeed.



And with these socks already purchased and ready for voting-booth prime time, how could I not go this year?



Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• set aside an evening or afternoon to review the voter's pamphelet
• mark down all of my preferred choices
• do any needed research and make final decisions on any undecided-on votes
• get dressed November 4th morning in my voting socks
• go to my polling center down the block and vote!