For those of you who may not know, North Carolina is now a battleground state for the elections. For as long as I have lived in North Carolina, the state has been pretty Republican for national positions (president and senate, at least). This election is different. There are many reasons why NC has become a battleground state, which you can google later. The result is that more people feel that their vote counts in our state, and there has been a huge amount of new voters. An even larger impact can be seen in the early voting statistics. Many people who voted early waited 3-4 hours. I know that I went to 2 early voting locations on Friday and the line was wrapping around the building—and decided that I just couldn’t do it then. Over 40% of registered voters in North Carolina voted early or by absentee ballot! That is a pretty tremendous number. Regardless of who “wins”, I am excited to think that this election will be a record turn out. Please, if you are debating on whether or not to stand in line today, remember that wherever you live, your vote counts. And if you live in North Carolina, please know that the lines for “On-time” voting are not as long as they were for early voting. I stood in line for an hour and fifteen minutes, and the line was much shorter when I left than when I started.
PLEASE VOTE!
And if you think that your person won’t win, and that your vote won’t count, remember that you really don’t have the right to complain if you didn’t do something about it…like vote!
And if you think that your person will win, and it doesn’t matter if you vote, just remember what has happened the last couple of presidential elections. I heard that the 2000 election was determined by 0.01% of the votes—you don’t know if your vote will be that percentage point!
