YOUR VOTE ~ DOES IT MATTER?

This year’s Presidential election seems to be causing quite a bit of hysteria here in the Soprano State, which is somewhat intriguing, but at the same time, puzzling to me for a number of reasons. A few observations.

First off, this is the one election where your vote counts the least, yet voters will arrive at the polls in droves as compared to other election days. NJ can only deliver 15 electoral votes to a Presidential candidate. By mentioning that fact, I, in no way, intend to diminish the importance of the office of the President or the importance of exercising your right to vote or to debate the worthiness of the candidates. As voter turnout is quite strong during a Presidential election, it further evidences the public’s seemingly strong desire to exercise its right to vote and select the candidate of its choice. On the other hand, many voters sit home on other election days, the days when your vote actually counts the most. This scenario is troublesome as well and I address some of those issue later in this post.

Regardless how you feel about the Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidates, and by the looks of things, many of you have VERY strong feelings one way or another, those candidates began their political careers at other levels of elected office holding, some of the very elections that many of you choose not to be bothered with during those political processes. Vice Presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, both began their political careers as elected council members. As election results show, voter turnout is pretty poor unless it is a Presidential election. When you choose not to vote in local elections, remember that your next President, Governor, Congressman or Senator probably began his/her political career in a local election. Those who bypass serving the public at local levels, get their support not only from money, either their own or from political parties and supporters, but also receive support from political leaders and bosses, which you also play a role in selecting by voting or not voting.

By all accounts mentioned, I'm convinced NJ voters hold their right to select a President very dear. In fact, the evidence shows that many of you hold the Presidential election as the one election that you will not sit home and ignore your patriotic duty. But do you know that Governor Corzine and Senators Codey & Lesniak, along with many of their colleagues, feel very diffently? Do you know they want to take away your vote? That's right ... our elected officials of the official Soprano State don't trust you to vote properly. In fact, if our elected offcials have their way, NJ’s 15 electoral votes might even end up on talley sheet of the very candidate NJ voters did not select. The basic plan is for NJ 15 electoral votes to be delivered to the winner of the national popular vote, but only once enough states have entered into the arrangement to give the popular vote winner at least 270 electoral votes and the presidency. I don't like the plan for a number of reasons. Until such time as the Presidential election is nation-wide and uniformly switched from an Electoral College method to a Popular vote method, the current system of NJ's electoral votes being delivered to the very candidate WE selected should remain in place. I don't feel it is proper for Corzine, Lesniak, Codey and the rest of the Soprano State officials who have given approval to this plan to arbitrarily give away our vote.

Here in the Soprano State we have numerous officials who are either under investigation, indictment, on their way to jail or currently sitting in jail. Where is the outrage when one of our very own officials heads off to jail? You won’t hear any from our very own Governor. He makes pitiful statements such as "it’s disappointing" or "it’s sad" notwithstanding his promise to clean up corruption in NJ. If Governor Corzine was serious about cleaning up corruption, he would use those moments to harshly criticize public corruption, but he doesn’t. Therefore, I cannot take Governor Corzine seriously and apparently no one else does either as the corruption continues. I surely don't want him and the rest of the clowns in Trenton to decide where my vote should be delivered either. Do you?