Every Vote Counts

Today was the day for voters to go to the polls to vote for their choice as to who is going to be in charge of the state or their representative in congress and/or senate.   The problem for me is, as the sun came up on this day we exercise our right and privilege as an American citizen, I thought I knew who I was going to vote for, but if anyone asked me why, my reasoning wasn't anything concrete, just based on hearsay from other people.   As I was sitting at the breakfast table contemplating this, an email from my brother-in-law came up in my inbox.   It was a link from MPR radio that gave you a quiz and would match you with the candidate that matched your views and opinions about different topics with the candidates running.   Perfect, this is just what I needed.  Upon completing the test, I had more information and less answers to my question of who I was going to vote for. 

The results of the quiz gave me the exact opposite choice of who I was thinking I was going to vote for.   I had to decide if I wanted to vote for a candidate with whom had similar views on a majority of the issues the quiz asked about or if I wanted to vote for a candidate that had the same view point on two issues I feel particularly strong about right now.   Unfortunately, no one candidate covered both areas.   So, I spent the afternoon trying to decide if I wanted to vote with the general campaign of a candidate or the specific issues.   At one point in the afternoon, I was tempted to just not vote, what is one vote anyway?   I mean, really, in the grand scheme of things, does one vote really matter?  Yes.  Yes, it does I told myself and continued to process the information I had in front of me.  

By 3:00 in the afternoon, I could not process anymore and I decided to go vote.  I decided to vote with the specific issues and know that at least I had made a decision.   It is a first for me.   I have traditionally asked Mark who he was going to vote for and followed suit or voted along political party lines.  I know that the voting process is in place so that the general population can choose the leaders, and in this race, no, my one vote was probably not going to sway the campaign one way or the other, but at the end of the day, I read the information, made a choice, and voted upon that choice.