Why I Vote

It sounds glib, but I'm voting because there is absolutely no reason not to.

• It's legal. Nothing stopping me there.
• I'm registered in Massachusetts. Even that was almost frictionless. I filled out a form at a table set up directly in front of my T stop on National Voter Registration Day, and a week or two later, my confirmation arrived in the mail.
• I have time. Polling stations here are open from 7 AM to 8 PM on Tuesday. (Yes, Tuesday. Apparently there are robocalls in the area suggesting otherwise. Nope.) I start work at 9 and get out of class by 6:30. 
• I know who I'm going to vote for. None of that undecided business here. (And I care about the outcome of the two important races on the ticket.)
• My polling place is easy to get to. I walk down the street two blocks, turn the corner, and I'm there. (It is not, however, the closest I've ever lived to where I vote. When I lived in Wisconsin, I voted at the DMV branch directly across the street from my apartment. Wisconsin also had same-day registration, which was great.)

I don't deny that I tend toward laziness (see: amount of note-taking I still have to do for Tuesday's class). But -- especially compared to these people -- voting is an easy thing for me to do. So look for my "I voted" sticker.

Blog the Vote

I actually teared up when I saw this banner in Ridgefield's 300th anniversary parade this year. The LWV held onto a ca.-1915 banner carried by suffragists in town and brought it out for the occasion.

The women who made the banner (obviously) didn't have the right to vote. Neither did these, to name just a few: Sojourner Truth, Carrie Chapman Catt, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Lucretia Mott, Rose Schneiderman, and Mary Church Terrell.

Not enough? Start reading the letters, articles, and oral histories from Freedom Riders collected at Breach of Peace and remember that for many people, seeing an amendment added to the Constitution wasn't enough.

People with political power have, for hundreds of years, tried to avoid sharing that power. Now that we have it - something other people have fought to bring about - let's make it count for something.

Pay a visit to your polling place on Tuesday, and think about what it took to get you there.

Chasing Ray has a roundup of Blog the Vote posts - thanks for organizing, Colleen and Lee!

Khaled Hosseini

If you haven't already fallen in love with Mr. Hosseini through his words at BEA 2008 ("And if that writer were a woman, it would be so much sweeter for me... I'll accept this award as her proxy"), maybe this will do it.

As a secular Muslim, I too was offended. Obama's middle name differs from my last name by only two vowels. Does the McCain-Palin campaign view me as a pariah too? Do McCain and Palin think there's something wrong with my name?

I'd like to think that you don't have to be an Obama supporter to object to seeing his name turned into an epithet.