So it may be a couple weeks until Election Day, but Avril and I cast our votes today. One of the cool things about Oregon is its unique vote-by-mail system. It's a great system that has no real down side -- despite claims it would lead to voter fraud in 1998 when Oregon started the program, it's actually turned out to be safe and led to a voter turnout jump. Oregon's rate is higher than most other states.
I like the idea of taking the ballot and giving it a good going-over in the comfort of your home. It gives you more time to research the candidates, think over your vote, and send it in at your leisure. It's regrettable that we barely have had 50 percent voter turnout nationally in the past few presidential elections -- while apathy is inexcusable, you have to wonder if the rest of the country adopted Oregon's lead, would we see more interest from people who can't be bothered to head to the polls on Election Day? Vote-by-mail might be hard to do for the rest of the nation, but frankly it's safer, easier and less likely to see Florida-type problems than other methods. It works for 2 million Oregonians, anyway.
So we've voted, but unfortunately we still get to wait 17 days or so and see what our votes mean. Ye gods!
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