3/4/08 TuesdayWell, I’ve had my first ever voting experience. And I am not happy. They had Cherie’s name on the list but not mine. I really don’t care about that. One phone call to the tax office fixed it. These kinds of things happen and it didn’t bother me at all. What did bother me was seeing that my freedom was imposed on. Walking in the door is a sign announcing that you HAD to vote either republican or democrat and couldn’t switch later. Then the ballots were set up with either republican candidates or democrat and in big letters on each one was a statement. “I AM A REPUBLICAN” or “I AM A DEMOCRAT”. So you MUST declare your affiliation if you want to vote. That is fine if you are one or the other. But I am neither a republican or democrat. Here is my declaration… “I AM AN AMERICAN” …period. My country is founded on the rights of individuals, on freedom. Voting is the integral core of that but now I find that freedom is impinged. What if one of the candidates I feel is best suited for an office is republican and one I feel is best for another is democrat? In Texas I am not allowed to vote freely like this. My choice has been taken away. Either I vote for the entire republican ticket or the entire democrat, no in between. My only other choice is to not vote at all. So as politicians play and wrangle for power in this chess game for dominance our rights have been trampled on. We have become pawns moved about like cattle being herded and in the process our voices are muted.
So I am not happy. I picked the party that had the one person I wanted to vote for and didn’t vote on much else.
2 comments:
I did the same Bob...I walked in and they asked Republican or Democrat. I said neither, and they were confused....there weren't many offices for me to vote on, as my district isn't up for election this year, so I only voted for the Presidential Primary and three legislative issues. I primarily vote Republican, so I was on the Republican Roll,,,,but I formally and officially asked to be removed from the Republican party on their website, and I have joined the Constitution Party. Normally I pretty much vote as an independent, and was very frustrated that they don't have a primary for that! It's annoying!
There's some misconceptions about elections v. primary/caucus. Yesterday was a primary in which each party has a "vote" to which candidate they want to run in the general election. Every party can have a primary/caucus on that day, but as usual the third parties arent strong enough or have just one cadidate anyway to have "votes" on this day. When you declare republican or democrat on primary day means only that you can vote once D or R on that one day. What you declare yourself in March means absolutely nothing in November, you can vote any way you want. The media confusses people with calling it "election day" and it's not, its primary day. In Texas we have a "hybrid" of primary and caucus, primary determines the majority of the delegate vote and the caucus really determines who from each precinct will go on to the county, state and national conventions. In most election years caucus' are just routine clean up, voting for party platform deals etc, but on the democrat said this year it was important due to the extremely close race and each candidate needed every caucus delegate they could get. So don't worry in November you can vote your "Amercianess" and vote across party lines if you wish.
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