In years past, I wasn’t a politics/policy wonk. I didn’t read bills being proposed at the state legislature. I didn’t read the politics section of the newspaper. I didn’t listen to radio or watch TV news, except when it was on in the background and occasionally caught my ear. But still, I voted.
One particular ballot initiative woke me up and made me understand that I couldn’t just read ballot questions and decide my vote while casting said ballot.
I lived in Missouri, and the ballot question was (paraphrasing), “Should gambling be allowed in Missouri only on approved waterways?” I read it for the first time while I was voting.
Well, hell, I’d visited Vegas a couple of times and figured no, gambling should not be allowed only on approved waterways; IMHO, it should be allowed wherever in Missouri that someone chose to build a casino — just like it was in Nevada.
Yep, I voted “no.”
Listening to election returns that evening (the measure failed), hearing what the measure’s purpose was, and what would not now happen because it failed, I finally understood why I needed to pay much better attention, much more often, to all elections and all voter issues.
I’d venture a guess that many voters across the country are kinda like that 30-ish me. They don’t pay much, if any, attention to the information that is available to all voters if they choose to be informed about elections. They frantically work their way through each day, fighting to survive in a world that seems stacked against them at every turn, perhaps raise kids they have precious little time with, then read their ballots and vote on election day without fully knowing what impact their vote will have.
Changing that unawareness is supposed to be what campaign advertising is all about. I don’t recall seeing ads for or against the floating casinos. I also don’t recall conversations within my peer group re: that initiative. Of the two, I imagine the latter, had it occurred, would have been the most powerful in “informing” me, regardless of which side it took.
Talk to your friends and neighbors. Try to make sure people are at least thinking about and paying attention to this election. We need well-informed voters, and lots of them, at the polls in November.