{"id":7195,"date":"2013-11-05T12:15:30","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T17:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=7195"},"modified":"2013-11-05T12:15:30","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T17:15:30","slug":"why-i-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2013\/11\/05\/why-i-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/a>

Photo: myJon <\/a>via creative commons, some rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

When I was younger, I was an occasional voter–and almost always voted for a third or fourth or tenth party candidate. My way of rebelling against the powers that be.<\/p>\n

I still seem to have opinions that are a bit outside the mainstream but, with rare exception, I vote.<\/p>\n

Here’s why:<\/p>\n

1. I can. I have met too many people through the years–mostly from other countries but even African Americans back in the ’60s–who could not vote. People gave their lives for the right to vote.<\/p>\n

2. I like to complain about politicians and government. Voting gives me griping rights.<\/p>\n

3. I like being part of my community. Like basketball games at the local school, voting at my polling place puts me in touch with others in my town who are long-time residents.<\/p>\n

4. I love the polling place ladies. These are the (usually) middle-aged or older women (mostly) who sign you in and walk you through the year’s ballot.<\/p>\n

5. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. Throughout his childhood, my son heard from me about voting as the essential tool of the citizen in a democracy. Beginning when he was four or five, I schlepped him to the voting booth so he would yearn for the day when he could mark his own ballot.<\/p>\n

So, back at you:<\/p>\n

Why do you vote?<\/p>\n

If you don’t vote, why not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, I was an occasional voter–and almost always voted for a third […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7195"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7199,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195\/revisions\/7199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}