As a teacher, we emphasized our right and need to vote. This is a privilege that our service men and women are out there protecting for ourselves or trying to bring to others.
Our children were brought up to treasure this right as well. Jon and his Sarah even volunteered time in Chicago as poll watchers. Tiffany makes sure her husband's absentee vote is counted when he is traveling during election times. Having moved to Hawaii, I'm seeing a different state of mind. Hawaii has had the distinction of having the lowest voter turnout of all the states in the 2008 election. Good grief! This is when Hawaii's own, Barack Obama was running for President! I had to laugh when one of this year's candidates running for office in Hawaii touted the fact that he headed President Obama's election campaign here. I sure wouldn't have used that as a qualification to brag about.
Here are some excuses I've heard from people:
1. I don't know who to vote for so I'm leaving it to others who know more than I do and will do a better job of it.
2. I don't have the time.
3. My vote can't change anything.
4. They're all corrupt anyway so it doesn't make any difference.
5. I don't want to register because then they'll call me for jury duty which I don't have time for.
6. Even if politicians might be worthy when they are elected in, they are soon made corrupt by the system.
My mother hasn't been voting either because there was no one to help her with it. Now that we've moved back to Hawaii, I got her an absentee ballot written in Japanese. I was surprised that she definitely has strong views on many of the candidates. She's also listened to the news, and has issues that are important to her. A few of her votes cancelled mine out, but that's fine.
So why is the voter turnout so low in Hawaii? Please don't tell me they might not know there's an election going on.
