Register — and vote
To the editor:
This is the time to register to vote. You do not live in a country where you can decide to vote on the day of the election and then walk to the nearest voting site and cast you ballot. Unlike a gun sale, you must register a month in advance to be able to exercise your consent by ballot. The deadline for the Aug. 23 Primary is Monday, July 25.
Don’t punk out with the candidates are all so boring. Yeah, these candidates are trying their best to look respectable. Respectable is boring. They got all dressed up and will do their best to serve the interests of whoever they think they govern. Let ’em know what you think, but pick one out of the line up and vote. The mayor will know you voted when you tell him what you want done. (But unless you tell him, he won’t know it was the other guy.)
Get some skin in the game. Drinkable water, honor for veterans, teacher’s salaries, your tax money is gonna be decided and spent by these terribly dull-looking candidates. Vote for who you think is trustworthy. Your candidate may disappoint you. Only humans are running for election this year, so pick one.
Half of us that are citizens simply do not vote; perhaps we don’t feel qualified. Sixty percent of Floridian adults have a reading level at what the rest of the world considers adequate for the sixth grade. So what. Your whole life you’ll look somebody in the eye to see if they are trustworthy. There is no special reading skill required for that type of good judgement. Vote. Get a librarian or a friend to help you fill out your online voting application. Register for a mail ballot on your first election and ask someone to help go over it with you before you mail it in. Or mark your pick on your sample ballot, so that you can take that with you to the polls. If you mark the wrong candidate, you can trade in the “spoiled” ballot at your voting site for a fresh try. We are all in this together my friend, we all had to do this for the first time at some point in our lives. Sign up to vote. Sign up now. We are all waiting to know what you’re thinking.
Ellen Starbird
Cape Coral