Vote!

A simple message for everyone this morning....today is National Voter Registration Day in the United States.  That means that if you have not registered to vote yet in the upcoming election, you should!

As regular visitors to this space know, I live in central Kentucky, and our state has done a pretty good job making is possible to vote in a variety of ways in response to the coronavirus pandemic.  In the primary election earlier this year and now in the general election, we have the privilege of choosing to vote via absentee ballot, which was formerly reserved for people with ongoing health issues that prevented them from being able to travel to polling places.

And new for the general election are absentee ballot drop-boxes, or they will be, since they are due to be installed in the next week or so.  Because of the tenuous nature of mail delivery I'm holding onto ours until we can safely put them into a drop-box.

I keep reading of various issues in numerous states, and it so depresses me that there are so many thumbs on scales around the country.  In some states it's an effort by one party to help put another party's candidate on the ballot to dilute votes from the frontrunner, or further disenfranchisement of felons who were just awarded the right to vote, only to learn that they must pay any outstanding court costs or other restitution before their voting privileges are restored, or playing games with the locations of polling places.

Not exactly what our founding fathers likely intended.

But we have the opportunity to control our own destiny for the most part.  And we should.  No, we MUST.  The right to vote is special and should be cherished and never taken for granted.

So exercise that right.  Now!