Vote! I say, and I honestly encourage you to vote twice. It’s true. Once is not enough for a dedicated lover of democracy in an election year of such incredible importance as 2008. Of course, if you’re a regular voter, you know I’m not talking about sneaking past the vigilant poll workers to cast your votes twice. No. There are two election dates: The Primary Election on Sept. 20 and the General Election on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which happens to be Nov. 4 this year.
Got that? Sept. 20 and Nov. 4! But, before we get there, you have three other dates to keep, and a good deal of homework to do, too.
Let’s get the whole date thing out of the way first. The other important dates start with July 22, which is almost now. If you have written a letter to the editor taking your representative on the Maui County Council to task for “not getting it,” or if you have expressed dissatisfaction with a State Senator or State Representative representing Maui, you owe it to the rest of us to put your ideas out in the voters’ marketplace by becoming a candidate. Hey, we can’t really deal with your ideas if you’re just a letter writer or a grumbler. On the other hand, if you give us half a chance to approve of your plans, we might just approve you all the way into the Council, House or Senate. To be taken seriously about your ideas of how elected officials should do their jobs, there is nothing more effective than becoming an elected official and doing the job “the right way.” So, today, tomorrow—by July 22 at the latest—you’ll need to have your candidacy filed. The office is conveniently located in Kalana O Maui, the County Building, on High Street in Wailuku.
Do it! Seriously, everyone is unhappy with someone in public life, and we all deserve to benefit from the genius you have incubated as you’ve watched everyone do everything wrong for so long.
The other two dates matter more to the rest of us—to the masses who know what we want and what we believe we deserve, but don’t have the certainty candidates must have about how to get/create/cause what is wanted. Those dates are registration deadlines. The good news is that if you do the first, you don’t have to do the second. In fact, if you’ve registered in the past—maybe in advance of the presidential preference caucuses—and you haven’t moved or changed your name, you can skip both of these dates. For those who need them, the dates are: Primary Election registration deadline, Thursday, Aug. 21, at 4:30 p.m.; General Election registration deadline, Monday, Oct. 6, at 4:30 p.m.
What? Is this Bean-guy like psychic or something? How could he know all this about when things happen in the future? Not psychic, but you could seem magical yourself if you’d go to the State of Hawai‘i’s excellent Elections Website at hawaii.gov/elections where you’ll find a lot more dates, endless (very useful) fact sheets, volunteer opportunities and much, much more.
Please register once and vote twice. It’s definitely time to have our elected officials selected by the electorate instead of by just a tiny sliver of the population, mostly those who are already avid campaign workers for one or more candidates.
Finally, as you’ve heard over and over: “No vote. No grumble.” I’m serious about that.
The Whole Presidential Election Hoopla
Let’s take a breath.
Our choices in the presidential election this year are extreme, as they have been in the past few elections, but the effect of the final choice is of much, much greater importance than at any other time in decades. For the push to victory or a foreseeable end of the war in Iraq… for the possibility of far worse or much better conditions in the Middle East… for the sake of the budget, foreign trade and the other elements that make up the underpinning of the American economy… for one major change in the U.S. healthcare system or another, the choice you make on Nov. 4 makes a world of difference.
Consider this: Even though Hawai‘i voters are usually able to shrug and think “our votes don’t matter,” that is not necessarily the case in 2008. Eight years ago, the presidential election hung by a few threads of almost punched-out paper filaments called “hanging chads” in Florida. There is every reason to believe that the pressures of race (yes, it does matter) and fanaticism will make this another super-close call. While it is possible, as usual, that Hawai‘i voters will hear the “final” results of the national election on the radio hours before our polls close, it is also possible that those results will become meaningless (it happened in 2000), and be finalized only when your vote and mine are finally counted.
As I said above, register by Aug. 21, and vote twice: Sept. 20 and Nov. 4. Please, get serious about this, it is—after all—not just a privilege. It’s a duty of citizens.