My first Election Day

Yesterday was my first time voting. My civics teacher allows us to get fifty bonus points per term. We get fifty for registering and twenty for voting. It seems kind of backwards that way, but it's more fair to those whose birthdays come after Election Day. It's a required class, which means it's taught by a jock, which means it's not a very good class.

I voted for a good mixture of republicans and democrats, and I didn't vote for the things about which I knew nothing. I felt bad that I had never heard of any of the other party candidates. The problem with voting for democrats here is that they hardly have any chance--and none of them won. My English teacher told us that 10,000 people in Davis County, including my father, voted straight republican and 2,000 voted straight democrat, which is just as bad. I think people shouldn't be voting if that's just what they're doing.

There were two people in our district running for the state school board, and it seemed like the nefarious villain of the two had more support with countless campaign signs and positive letters to the editor about him. My civics teacher told us that he had gone in to vote early, and didn't know about the issues, but recalled seeing a sign in his neighbor's yard for Barden (the bad guy), so he voted for him--then came home and found a flier about him and could have kicked himself. Fortunately, he only got 38% of the votes.

Then I came home and watched the Election Day episodes of Gilligan's Island and The Addams Family.

Next year I might very well be gone by Election Day.