Your voice, your vote--be counted

Last night at 6:29 p.m., I realized, "Oh, crap! I forgot to vote in the primary."

So I quickly got dressed, fed my dog, and headed out the door.

Then, "Oops! Don't know where the polling place is."

Since it changes every year, and I'd trashed the mail-in documents with the information I needed on it, I couldn't be sure where I needed to go. So I quickly got online to find the location. I googled "Arizona polling sites," by the way, because I didn't know exactly where to search and didn't remember I could go straight to the Arizona Secretary of State's office to get the information I needed. Well, now I know.

By the time I found what I was looking for I only had 10 minutes left before polling closed. And wouldn't you know it? I got in my car to drive over and realized I had left the directions inside the house. No worries. Didn't need them. I'd been to the place before and thought I could find it easily enough. Nope. Took two wrong turns in my neighborhood before I found the street I wanted and saw the Greek Orthodox church I remembered from last time.

As soon as I started to walk up to the building, a man yelled across the yard at me, "Two minutes!"

I had to laugh because I thought I was down to one.

But I made it in time. As soon as I walked in the door, I saw my neighbor who was working the polls. She showed me where to sign, and I received my ballot. I was the last person to vote there that day.

Another poll worker stuck a sticker on my shirt. Whew! I served my duty.

The thing is. I didn't want to.

That was no accident that I "forgot" to vote. I didn't want to. I've been feeling more and more disaffected with politics and government in the last four years than I ever have in my entire life, to the point that I don't care to participate. And, yet, I know on some level, it has to make a difference when you do.

In my youthful years, particularly the college years and the early years of my career, I loved to talk politics. Loved it. Read every single thing that was newsworthy and politically-related. Subscribed to political magazines. Read biographies of important political figures. But I almost never do that anymore. In fact, I've avoided it altogether.

Until this year.

I've started to regain an interest because of the immigration bill my governor signed into law this year. It was horrendously controversial. And it really made me realize, "I don't have a voice."

At least, not unless I use it. So that's why I voted.

Will you vote in your primary?