Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Okay, this is going to be a quick one (or a "quiche" one if you're George W. *joke*) but since it's Election Day I thought I'd say a few words. The voting process is a complex mix of standing in line, hanging chads, and, in the past 2 elections, disappointments. This country prides itself on the democratic process that gives every man (and later women) the right to vote. We get up early, search to find our polling center, go through a game of 20 questions to prove our identity, and then go behind a black curtain to cast our anonymous ballot. Okay, so the key word there was anonymous. What happened to the anonymity of the voting system? I log onto my Facebook (starting yesterday) and all I see is tons of Facebook statuses shouting at me that John Doe "is the 1,428,251st person to donate their status to get out the vote for [insert your candidate here] today. Donate yours: http://causes.com/election/" Now I'm not saying that it's wrong to tell your friends who you're voting for but I find it a little odd that you have NO opinion on the matter in everyday conversation but now you are pimping out your status on Facebook to promote your (new?) political beliefes. Seriously? Maybe I don't want to know what all my friends on Facebook are voting. Is anyone else worried this might unfairly affect other peoples decisions.?
I mean, it's one thing to make your status "I just voted, you should too" or even "Go Obama/McCain/Nader." But no, that wouldn't be pushy enough. Instead, everyone is signing up for a FB app that automatically updates their status 20 zillion times a day to remind the rest of us who you voted for. So now, when I pull up my news feed, I miss the important status of "Janie just had her baby girl!"* because everyone else has clogged the feed up with their nonsense.
Now I think ecounragement to vote is great, but does anyone here believe that Alice is going to turn on her FB and see that you voted for McCain and say "Oh my, I should do that too. I never thought of that. I must go right now."
Trust me I'm really, truely, honestly excited that so many young people are going out to vote. I just wish people wouldn't blast it all over my wall. You're making me feel bad for voting for..........oh you are not getting it out of me that easy. LOL

Happy Election Day everyone!

*Janie did not acctually have a baby. In fact I don't even know anyone named Janie, it was just a ficticous example to get my point across.

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