As you can see from this picture, which I received via text from a close family member Tuesday night, he is mad at me for not voting. He sent me text messages all day Tuesday first asking if I voted and then when I responded “no”, he went on a full campaign of stalking me and berating me, trying to get me to the polls. He is super funny so his messages had me laughing all day, but the reality is I was a total loser by not voting. He challenged me to blog about “how much I take for granted, the 19th amendment.” by not voting, so I am. By not exercising my right to vote I have given up my right to complain about our government until the November election because I didn’t bother to participate in the process. We live in the greatest country in the world and I should have shown more respect for my rights and freedoms by voting. So there you have it and I will not do it again but let me explain why I totally flaked this year.
To be honest I always vote in the General election but I cannot say the same about the Primaries. I normally try to be a good citizen and exercise my voting rights but I ran into a little glitch on Tuesday, not that there is an valid excuse except maybe a real emergency but this is what happened.
For the past years my ballot has always arrived in the mail because they never have a polling place near our house. So I always fill it out and then usually drop it off at one of the kids schools. Well, this year when the sample ballot arrived it listed a polling location, which I failed to read. I then kept moving the booklet from one spot to the next because it was big and ruining my organization. I think I finally threw it away because I thought my ballot would be arriving any day and I already knew how I was voting so I didn’t need the sample ballot anymore. Well, it didn’t arrive. I guess they added polling locations, so they didn’t automatically send me a ballot and I did not fill out the paperwork for them to send me the absentee ballot, so I had no ballot. This sounds like a super lame excuse, which it is, but it is honest. Once I realized I had to find a polling place and go there with Tiara, I lost all motivation and didn’t really care. I know that is really terrible and I should feel ashamed but I am not sure if I do.
To be honest, voting is always a rather daunting job. Because I feel compelled to be well informed, I force my self to read everything and do research, which I think is only responsible. The problem is that Lou does not feel compelled to stay informed because he has me to inform him. So every election I meticulously fill in my ballot, seal it and drop it off. Invariably after I have sealed my ballot, Lou will get out his ballot and start asking me who all the people are and which way he should vote. He is always clear on the presidency, but past that it is up to me to explain who the people are and both sides of the propositions, so he can make his decision. One year I was so irritated, I took his ballot and filled it in for him, which is exactly what he wanted me to do. The next time, I threatened that I was not going to fill his in, so he threatened not to vote if I didn’t help him. Ugh….. I hate it when people don’t vote so I helped him once again. See it doesn’t make sense why I was so nonchalant about not voting on Tuesday. I am usually a stickler for that kind of thing, which is why this particular family member was so surprised and annoyed with me.
Either way, there is nothing I can do about it now except promise to vote in November. 
I learned today that I could have gone to any polling location in my county and that would have been fine. So now I know.
Have a great Thursday….
P.S. If you have emailed me via my blog site and I did not reply, that is because I didn’t get your message. I just learned that my system is not working properly. I had a problem months ago but I thought it was resolved but apparently I was wrong. Sorry, hope I can fix it soon. I worked on it for half and hour today with no luck. If you want to contact me just email me at: tiffanigoff.com.
