Tuesday, November 08, 2005

I Voted

I am happily wearing my "I Voted" sticker, having just returned from the polls. I was having a little trouble this morning explaining to my eight year old step-daughter why only 6.8 million people in California are expected to vote today. She was concerned that the lines would be very long at the polling station this morning. I said no, there would be no line (there wasn't). But how could I explain to her that only 6.8 million of 15.8 million registered voters were going to vote today? Or the even more bizarre (and sad) fact that this is considered a strong turnout?

While I don't advocate her solution to the problem ("I thought everyone HAD to vote!"), it sure would be nice if people like Arnold Schwarznegger, the pharmaceutical companies, the teacher's unions... would spend some of their $300 million on getting people to vote on whichever side of the issue, instead of just the partisan (and, to me, often misleading) issue oriented advertising.

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