Where's my ballot?

I don’t have a ballot for this election. I requested it months ago–filled out a form and didn’t hear back. Between work, taking care of my mother and moving twice, I haven’t had a chance to follow up. My vote would’ve been from California, decidedly blue. Still, I would’ve liked to vote. I need to fix this for future elections, perhaps over the phone or on one of my trips back to California.

The choice this election presents is one of the toughest I’ve seen. The Biden administration’s active role in the war on Gaza is morally repulsive. While I sympathize with Rashida Tlaib’s refusal to endorse Harris, I find Trump’s criminal behavior more repulsive, and his incendiary rhetoric of hatred more of threat in a world where nuclear terrorism or nuclear war is a distinct possibility. On the domestic front, the Biden administration deserves credit for advancing labor rights and defending abortion.

Statistics indicate education level is now a leading predictor of political alignment among voters. One of my kids’ former babysitters came from a working class family, put herself through college in Georgia, and ended up with about a hundred thousand dollars in student loans, which she didn’t think she could ever repay, as she’d missed some minimum payments and let the interest compound. She was the valedictorian of her high school. She said she didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of her Wall Street connections.

We might be able to break out of this cycle of hatred breeding hatred by making higher education more affordable, practically free. I do hear stories of people who choose not to go to college even when they don’t have to pay for it. I wonder what it would take to create a culture that values learning.