voting matters

Once again, it feels like the world around us is out of control, and I have to say that I get irrationally angry at some of it.  New stories appear every day about malfeasance, greed, corruption, subverting religion, social issues, and a total lack of concern for our future, or that of the planet.  There are lies and obfuscation that just make everything harder.

And of course, the people that support the administration - who are behind most of the nonsense - are just blindly clapping, even when it directly adversely affects them.  It's a form of insanity, and cultish in the way it plays out. FAFO, indeed.

But I remain hopeful about it all.  At some point, the pendulum will swing back.  How long that takes is debatable right now, but with a bit of luck it will start during the next election cycle.

Sure, voter turnout for the mid-term primaries were abysmal.  In Florida, they were well below 20%, which pundits will tell you doesn't bode well.

But are they right?  Only time will tell if there's a general apathy - or if there's anything more to this.  As always read the breathless headlines with a grain of salt.  A couple of things to consider: 

• a good size block of voters switched to independent from either party; and there wasn't much to vote on in a primary for them.  So I wouldn't have expected them to show up at the polls.
• One might (rightfully) argue that many voters will simply vote to protect the administration or vote against it.  To some, it simply doesn't matter what the name is on the ballot to accomplish that.  
• There will be other things on the ballot in November that voters DO care about, like the property tax issue in Florida which likely will drive voter turnout.

So we'll see.  But the one thing you can do is to remind everyone that their vote is, in fact, important and they need to turn out and vote! Volunteer for a voter drive.  Make phone calls.  Canvas if that's your thing.