I’m a Proud Sticker Owner

I voted this afternoon and I got my sticker. The cute grandma type lady (one of several who always volunteer at the Bayview polls) proclaimed that “Cassie Peck has voted” and put the sticker on my coat for me. I felt mighty proud. When I was in college and first allowed to vote, I was in Caldwell and didn’t feel too much pressure or importance about it. If I didn’t know anything about the candidates I just voted Democrat, or if it was for something like justices I voted based on whose name I like more.

But having lived in Bayview (and back in the lovely land of NID) for two years, I feel a much stronger sense of community and responsibility to vote and to vote wisely. So I paid attention to ads and articles about the candidates and propositions over the last few weeks, and voted with some actual knowledge behind my choices. I didn’t take the time to learn anything about our justices, so instead of randomly picking people I just left those blank.

Next time I’ll do better about educated myself on all the candidates. But in the meantime, i hope it makes somewhat of a difference. I would really like to see more people in office who hold viewpoints similar to my own.

I’m going to be extra smug now and say that everyone better get out and vote next time. Some people say that they don’t because they don’t know anything about the issues, but I really believe that you can learn about the most important candidates and the propositions at least, and vote on those if nothing else. For example, one of the propositions we had here in Idaho was to increase funding for schools by raising the sales tax 1%. As anyone with any experience with Idaho public schools can attest to, they need better funding. So this should be a really easy one for people who, for example, care about their kids’ education to vote on. They could just vote on that and nothing else if they don’t feel knowledgable enough about the rest of the stuff on the ballot.

So here’s my self-important battle cry: Get out there and vote for what you believe in! You’ll feel proud of yourself, like you’ve shown yourself to be a part of your community, state, and country.

Plus, you get a sticker.