My family can tell you that I love voting!  Standing in line to vote in a presidential race fills me with such emotion that I can barely hold it in!  I like to vote on election day, standing in the long lines that often wrap around the building; standing there with other citizens who want to have their say in our government.  I think it is the most American thing we can do!

Which is why I cannot, for the life of me, understand why there are those who want to limit voting!  Let’s be honest, I do understand!  There are those who fear, who know that if we make it easier for people to vote then it will be harder for them to win!  It is easier if we limit when people can vote, put it in the middle of the day when most people have to work, shut down polling stations so that the lines are so long that some just give up.  I do understand.  I just think it is un-American.  

For the past 5 years I have not missed voting—even though we were living in Canada!  It continually amazed me that voting from a foreign country was easier than voting in the US.  We applied for our absentee ballot online.  A month before the election our ballot was emailed to us.  We filled it out and emailed it back in.  We didn’t get a sticker, but other than that it was just like voting in person.  Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost (OK, most of the time my candidate lost) but I had my say.  I voted!

Again, I wonder why we can’t make voting as easy as paying our bills, filing our income taxes—all the thing we do online.  It works.  I did it for 5 years!  I know all the reasons, but I still file my taxes online without fear.  Dread, maybe, but not fear!  We need to make it easier for people to be a part of this great experience, and experiment!

Today, for the first time in 6 years I voted in person.  I filled in all the little bubbles, and then took my ballot to be scanned.  As I was standing in the scanning line, I got choked up!  I told you I love voting!  To me it is a sacred act, and to have people deny people their vote, to deny the outcome—well to me that is heresy!  It undermines our democracy.  It is so Un-American!

As for me and my house, we voted today.  In person.  And yes, I got my sticker! 

Let me encourage you to vote!  I don’t care who you vote for (OK, that is not really true!) but I do care that you vote!  Vote early!  Vote on election day!  Stand in line!  Thank the people who are working in the polls.  They need and deserve our praise not our vitriol!  Get out and vote.  This grand American experiment depends on it.

I did my part! Please do yours!