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Today my husband and I exercised our right to vote. I have to say with a heavy heart that both of my children decided not to exercise their right to participate. Our daughter forgot to register for an absentee ballot and according to my husband when he spoke to her today, she wouldn’t have voted anyway. I had a passionate argument with my son today and it didn’t sway his decision at all. I brought up several facts such as the fact that people marched, protested and died for the right to vote and even today there are several states in our union who are purposefully putting roadblocks in place to deny the disenfranchised the right to vote. Texas requires a specific voter i.d to vote and there are very limited places to get one, some people have to travel over two hours to get that specific i.d. These types of restrictive i.d regulations makes it onerous to vote and it is done to dissuade certain demographic groups and they are primarily made up of the minority populations.
He argued that his vote doesn’t matter, I countered that au contraire it did. There are historical outcomes that prove him incorrect; some have been quite recent. All of this to no avail, he decided to be apathetic to the voting process. He did say that his mood may not be permanent, he could change next election year. That did little to cheer me up, I was sad that my arguments didn’t move him whatsoever and I know that my daughter would have been similarly unfazed.
We don’t have much power in this country and our vote is one of the last things that we have left to make our voice heard and leave an imprint of our decision as to which way our country should be governed and to know that I have two who don’t care and feel disassociated with their responsibilities makes me sad.
laurieanichols 
I feel empowered to vote when I’m electing city council members and voting on local measures. I feel less enthusiastic when voting in national elections.
I definitely understand your feeling about local elections and the difference in sentiment for national elections. The larger elections often make the little guy feel invisible, but when you add us up person by person our voices to get just as large. 🙂
Laurie, It is Jackie- I finally graduated College Tech Bus Mgmt, My dad passed a year ago already, and I got hacked so I changed my blog that is why I am bookreviews1966, I hope you stop by! Miss you soosos much, Jackie Paulson your friend forever…♥
Dear Jackie I have missed you just as much, I knew that you were busy getting your studies done and getting your career moving. Sorry about being hacked, but I will most definitely be following your new blog. 😀
That’s sad that they didn’t get to have a say. Everyone is Scotland got very much more engaged than usual in the referendum – and I hope that that will last. From here it looks as if the last two years of Obama is going to be very awkward and unsatisfactory all round? Is that the basic result?
I hope that the level of enthusiasm continues in Scotland for your country’s sake. Electorate participation is vital in a democracy. You hit it right on the nose; things are going to get mighty awkward in Washington and it isn’t going to do the people much good, alas for us. 😦