Be Sure to Vote – Just Not Like Homer Simpson

I only have a few topics for today.

The first is to tell all my readers to be sure to vote on November 4th if you haven’t already done so.

The second is to show you this short clip from “The Simpsons” showing Homer Simpson’s own 2008 voting experience (below). Homer speaks to some concerns of some Ohioans in this election of fears of voter irregularities, which were stoked a bit by allegations of registration problems with Acorn and with a new balloting system in place. I purposely wanted to wait until November 4 to vote because I am curious as to how the new process works. Earlier this year, the Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner mandated a switch to paper ballots for everyone. My county had been using touch screen voting, or some sort of electronic voting, for years now with no problems. I want to vote on Election Day to see how well the transition to the paper ballot system takes place. With all that is at stake, I want to be sure that what I see gives me confidence that my vote will still count as I intended. Homer speaks to many Ohioans' fears when he tries to vote for Obama, and it records his vote for McCain. In fact, he votes many times and they all count for McCain. He yells, as the computerized voting machine takes him away, “This doesn’t happen in America! Maybe Ohio, but not in America!” Hopefully the same “magic” won’t happen when they use computers to scan and tabulate those paper ballots.

The last topic: Barack Obama – along with Bruce Springsteen - came to Cleveland last night and drew an impressive crowd. As the Cleveland Browns played in the nearby stadium right beforehand, downtown parking was going to be virtually nonexistent. As people were encouraged to use public transportation and those options are limited here in Lake County, I opted to watch it live on the Internet and I was impressed with what I heard. I feel very excited about this election and I found myself even more encouraged about what the people of this country will be able to accomplish if/when Obama is elected. For those of you who agree with me, be sure to vote and make it count. And for those who don’t agree, be sure you do the same.

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