Get Out and Vote on Nov. 4

Friday, 31 October 2008 11:39 Joseph Peralta/AJPress

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The November 4, 2008 general elections may well become one of the most-watched elections in modern history in the United States.

Not since the Al Gore-George W. Bush push to the White House nearly a decade ago has there been more drama in the presidential race. Add to the fact that many Propositions in the ballot have become rallying cries for community activists from both sides of the fence (Propositions 7 and 8, for instance), and you have a brewing volcano ready to explode come voting day.

For the more than 16 million registered voters in California (16,171,772 to be exact, according to the Sept. 5 Report of Registration by the California Secretary of State website), the battle now is between exercising their right to vote on polling day, or wasting their chance to speak their minds by not going to the precincts they are registered to vote at.

Election Day (Nov. 4) falls on a Tuesday, a day which may make it cumbersome to trek to the voting booth. However, the California Secretary of State office and other election offices have tried to make voting easier for the public since low turnouts among registered voters have been experienced during the last few elections, including a low 28.22% turnout during the June 3, 2008 Statewide Primary Elections.

For those who want to cast their votes on Election Day, polling places will be open from 7am to 8pm. Each county designates the polling place for each voter and mails a sample ballot to each voter telling them where to vote on Election Day. If you are a registered voter and have not received your the sample ballot or any election information, contact your county elections official by going to the California Secretary of State website at www.sos.ca.gov.

As a registered voter, you may have received a vote-by-mail ballot at least seven days before an election. This just means that you belong to a precinct with fewer than 250 voters. Vote-by-mail ballots must be received by elections officials no later than the close of polls at 8pm on Election Day. Those returning vote-by-mail ballots on the day of the elections can do so at any polling place in the county or to the county elections office. If you are disabled or are ill and unable to return the vote-by-mail ballot yourself, you can designate a spouse, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling or a person residing in the same household to return the ballot to the elections official or the precinct board at any polling place within the jurisdiction.

In some places, county elections officials have made several voting options for registered voters so they can vote with ease or avoid the Election Day rush.

San Mateo County, for instance, issued a news release last October 24 stating that their elections offices in 40 Tower Road (City of San Mateo) and 555 County Center (Redwood City) are available for voting on weekdays and on the two Saturdays (Oct. 25 and Nov. 1) preceding Election Day.

Weekday voters can go into any of the two offices and vote for their candidates and on any ballot measures from 8am to 5pm. Weekend voters, meanwhile, have from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to cast their votes. Parking (limited to a half-hour) is even being offered free for early voters, certainly a bonus for those wishing to transact their business at the election offices.

Early voters have a choice of voting on the electronic voting system or voting a paper ballot.

You can check with your local county elections office if they have made arrangements for early voting. Go to the California Secretary of State website ( www.sos.ca.gov) to get the complete contact information of your local county elections official.

And for naturalized Filipinos who are registered voters, just a reminder. This is not the Philippines where representatives from candidates can guard the entryways and appeal to your “better sense” and vote for their candidates. Voters can in no way be pressured into voting a certain way by representatives from all recognized parties, or should be persuaded to vote in exchange for monetary compensation. Any elections irregularities should be immediately reported to the local county elections office or should be reported to the California Secretary of State office’s toll-free hotline (1-800-345-VOTE).

If you are undecided as to who to vote for, and how to vote on certain Propositions, the California Secretary of State website has a Voter Information Guide (VIG) that can be viewed online or downloaded to your computer. The VIG features information on statewide measures in the ballot, including the Propositon’s summary and analysis, as well as arguments for and against the measure. Aside from the English version, the VIG has been translated into six other languages, namely Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

Online, the VIG features a 250-word statement (online only) from each of the six presidential candidates (Barrack Obama of the Democratic Party, John McCain of the Republican Party, Alan L. Keyes of the American Independent Party, Cynthia A. McKinney of the Green Party, Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party and Ralph Nader of the Peace and Freedom Party).

For those wishing an easier, more digestible version of the VIG, a quick reference guide is available on the website which summarizes each Proposition and arguments for and against the measure into one page.

Suffrage, or the right to vote, is guaranteed in the US Constitution to its citizens, either born here or naturalized. Indeed, if you are a registered voter, it would be a shame not to exercise such a right as many have died and suffered to make voting in America more inclusive, starting with the time when slavery was abolished in the US in 1787 and when citizens, regardless of race or color, were granted the right to vote almost a full century later by virtue of the Fifteenth Amendment.

And just to stress a point: voting allows you to express your opinions. Whether you vote Democratic, Republican or Independent, you are participating in a process which determines how US laws will be made and amended; what kind of officials, including judges, will occupy important positions in government (by virtue of appointment by the President of the United States); how public policies will be crafted by lawmakers; how money is spent by the government; and so forth.

Voting also, in some cases, instills discipline and awareness from politicians, both in the national and local levels. While your one vote may seem inconsequential, when it is joined by others, it becomes a strong opinion that may be noticed by elected officials, and can become a guide for them as to what policies his or her constituents support or not.

Whether your candidate wins or loses, or a Proposition you are supporting passes or gets defeated, the most important thing is participating in the elections. You can say all you want about laws not being crafted to the needs of the citizenry, or not having a voice in the scheme of things, but these amount to nothing if you do not cast your vote on Election Day.

The message is, “Get out and vote!” In doing so, you may see yourself become part of history, and become part of the machinery that makes America and its democracy a continuing success. (www.asianjournal.com)

(Published October 31, 2008 p.sf2 NC)

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