{"id":638548,"date":"2018-10-24T07:55:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T13:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=638548"},"modified":"2018-10-24T07:56:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T13:56:52","slug":"please-vote-and-help-someone-else-do-it-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/10\/please-vote-and-help-someone-else-do-it-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Please vote — and help someone else do it, too"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Voting\"

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

A voting kiosk<\/p><\/div>\n

COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>Well folks, here it is, what has become my biannual get-out-the-vote commentary. I wasn\u2019t going to write one this year, over the last few cycles I figured I\u2019ve said all that could be said on the subject.<\/p>\n

This election feels different though: more tossups, more energy than I have ever seen in a midterm. More reasons to vote.<\/p>\n

By the time Heath publishes this, there will be less than two weeks to Election Day, some of you will have already voted, and frankly you\u2019re tired of reading about it. Fair enough; so am I. Feel free to stop reading here if you\u2019ve already voted and helped a least one other person to vote.<\/p>\n

\"Claudia

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Claudia Anderson<\/p><\/div>\n

Now, the rest of you, why haven\u2019t you voted yet? Yea, I know, your vote doesn\u2019t matter. Tell that to the former city councilman in Farmington who won his first race by one vote. Tell it to the fewer than 80,000 voters who ensured Donald Trump\u2019s win.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not informed? There is Google. There are many sources to pick from. I kind of like this one<\/a>. If anyone has one they like better, put a link in the comments below or on NMPolitics.net\u2019s, Facebook please. The more the better.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t like your choices? Have you ever had perfect choices in life? Try changing the way you think about this. It\u2019s not voting \u201cfor the lesser of two evils\u201d — it\u2019s voting for the better of the two or three options before you. Let me assure you from a lifetime of voting, the perfect candidate doesn\u2019t exist. Pick the one that seems to most closely reflect what\u2019s important to you.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t have time? Early Voting has been open since the 20th, and if that doesn\u2019t work, if you fill out this form<\/a> today you\u2019ll still have time to get an absentee ballot. Yes, you\u2019ll need some stamps to mail it back or you can skip the line and just turn it in at any polling place in your county.<\/p>\n

Maybe you think I\u2019m just being partisan. Nope. There is something remarkable in our system of government, something that until 242 years ago, not that long in the grander scheme of things, didn\u2019t even exist: our right to choose our own leaders, and remove them at our will, not theirs.<\/p>\n

So remarkable is this that the rest of the world has at least tried to copy our system. That leaves us with not only a right, but a duty and responsibility to vote.<\/p>\n

Go vote.<\/p>\n

One last thing: There is a good chance I\u2019m somewhat preaching to the choir here. Share this article with your kids, your nephew, anyone else who may need a nudge to vote. It matters, for the sake of not only our country, but our daily lives.<\/p>\n

Claudia\u00a0Anderson of Farmington is a past Democratic Party county officer and member of the party\u2019s State Central Committee. She has been active in several political campaigns. Today she follows politics avidly as a concerned citizen. She has been proudly voting since 1972.\u00a0Agree with her opinion? Disagree? We welcome your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It matters, for the sake of not only our country, but our daily lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[2238,3351],"class_list":["post-638548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-2018-election","tag-voter-turnout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638552,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638548\/revisions\/638552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}