The Big Vote

I'm 75 years old, and I can't recall a Presidential Election as challenging to the voters as this one.  But not so challenging for me because I knew early on who I wanted in office. And no, I'm not going to tell you who.  No matter who I voted for, I would lose friends if I told who.

But, trust me; my vote did not come without considerable thought and research regarding the issues. I knew I had to go beyond the endless name-calling and daily 'Gotcha's' as the news media pounced on Wikileaks' documents and endless Congressional Hearings as if they were inconvertible truths, or on charges of personal misconduct, or hundreds of other 'colorizations' of each candidate's qualifications.  

Sadly, more news was given to the 'unimportant' than to the 'important.'  The issues were not worthy news.  Issues didn't gain viewers for the 'talking heads' that seemed to be everywhere fanning the flames of mistruth, doubt and fiction.  But to me, the issues are many, and they are the most important thing at stake, not only for the three generations of us who will vote, but for at least three generations who will have to live with our decision.

I knew going in that the 'Politics' of this election would get nasty.  It seems to be the norm these days.  As much as I don't care for it, I could not do anything about it. But I could ignore the nastiness and focus on what was really important.  

Yet in spite of the nastiness, one thing is for sure, it brought to the surface the frustrations of a lot of concerned American voters.  Both parties were fighting each other at the public's expense over issues that could have been easily resolved if only those in power would just work together to resolve them.  

As Citizens, we've known for years what is wrong with our elected leadership, and finally we stood up and said we've had enough.  Now in the final hours of this administration, we are determined to do what we can to get our government back on course.  And we have the most powerful tool in the world to do it - our vote. 

Judy and I couldn't wait until Election Day.  We wanted to express ourselves as soon as possible, although our vote would not actually count until Election Day.  So we took advantage of Early Voting and happily stood in a long line of people who obviously were also in a hurry to get the election underway.  

It felt really good to move a step closer to exercising our Right and Privilege in the voting booth.  It felt even better as we walked out of the voting booth knowing we did what was necessary to keep our Country on track for at least the next four years.

Now it's a long wait to see if our vote counted.

Update:  

The election is over, the world is now facing a new leader who promises to fix everything.  I guess we'll see...

Follow-up.  Here's a link to the lies and perfidious statements the new President made in order to get elected.  This does not include all the promises he made to his supporters.  

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-whoppers-of-2016/ar-AAlJJoq?li=BBnb7Kz