You know what is incredibly scary, truly frightening, sweaty palm, shortness of breath terrifying? The number of people who have bitched and moaned about what is going on in the world who won’t pick their butt up out of their Barcalounger and get out and vote. The voting age population for the last presidential election (United States Election Project for Nov. 2004) was 221,256,931. The estimated number of voters in the 2004 election who actually voted was 122,294,978. This is just shy of 100,000,000 people who were too damn lazy to cast a ballot.The homily that you get what you deserve seems to be appropriate for our nation. All our citizens have the franchise. Our women can vote. Our people of color can vote. Our religious preference has no impact on our right to vote. There are many places in the world where that just isn’t true.
I was lucky enough to be the Director of Kids Voting for Southeast Pennsylvania in the 2006 election. I was astounded at the willingness to work of my 1,400 plus volunteers on Election Day, of the hundreds of teachers who supported the program and of the more than 16,000 students who cast ballots. We don’t have to be apathetic.
Hope is a big word, only four letters but a gihugeic word regardless. I hope and I hope you hope that we, as a nation, get out and vote. If we don’t, again we will get what we deserve. I don’t care if you don’t like either candidate, get off your keester and VOTE on Tuesday. Otherwise Halloween won’t be the scariest thing you have to deal with in the next year.
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