{"id":13624,"date":"2014-11-03T13:12:17","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T18:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=13624"},"modified":"2014-11-03T13:12:17","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T18:12:17","slug":"just-do-it-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=13624","title":{"rendered":"Just do it: vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vote\"<\/a>Tomorrow is Election Day.<\/p>\n

That should matter to you \u2014 but alarmingly, for a lot of you, maybe even a majority of the people reading this, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Consider these horrifying numbers: only about 75% of eligible voters are actually registered to vote. Of those, it is expected that only about 45% of those will cast ballots tomorrow in Pennsylvania. That means roughly one third of those eligible to vote will decide who our next governor is, who sits in the state legislature and who goes to Congress.<\/p>\n

Stop and think about that for a second: two thirds of potential voters will likely sit out tomorrow\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

If you hate government and politics and are so fed up you refuse to vote, it\u2019s you who are the problem. You see, the big-money special interest groups \u2014 left and right \u2014 don\u2019t want you to vote. Because if you vote, the politicians might just have to pay attention to you, not their big, fat campaign donations. When you don\u2019t show up and cast a ballot, you give more and more power to those special interests.<\/p>\n

And by not voting, you cast a ballot for the status quo, which let\u2019s be honest \u2014 is a mess, and a mess created by both Republicans and Democrats who think you aren\u2019t paying attention.<\/p>\n

Vote for change. Vote for the same. Vote for your incumbent or the challenger. But vote.<\/p>\n

As Alexis de Tocqueville once famously wrote, \u201cwe get the government we deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we don\u2019t pay attention and we don\u2019t vote \u2014 well, we get this mess. We get dysfunction. We get posturing. We get media stunts. We government dominated by a few shrill voices more interested in career advancement than solving problems.<\/p>\n

What we don\u2019t get are folks willing to roll up their sleeves and get down to work \u2014 hard work \u2014 of making government work again.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve made our opinions clear on those we think worthy of support \u2014 but we\u2019ll assume you\u2019re able to draw your own conclusions and pick candidates who largely represent your point of views. Go vote for them. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Almost anyone who wants to vote \u2014 assuming they\u2019re registered \u2014 can find the time to do so.<\/p>\n

Just do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is Election Day. That should matter to you \u2014 but alarmingly, for a lot of you, maybe even a majority of the people reading this, it doesn\u2019t. Consider these horrifying numbers: only about 75% of eligible voters are actually registered to vote. Of those, it is expected that only about 45% of those will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3497,5444,4],"tags":[1385,3496,5443],"class_list":["post-13624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-editorials","category-featured","tag-election-day","tag-turnout","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}