Fulfilling my American duty

Happy Election Day!

I may be thousands of miles away from the great U.S. of A., but I am not out of the loop with what's going on in my homeland. Thank you, technology.

A lot of my time is spent on the internet. I often peruse news sites, keeping track of current world events. This, of course, includes the U.S. Presidential Election. I've watched the Presidential debates and have read several articles about the candidates.

And I voted a couple of days ago.

Here is how the absentee voting process went:

First, I had to complete an on-line application to request a ballot. At the end of filling in all of the basic infomration, I printed the application and faxed it to the Marion County Election Board. A week later, an absentee voting consultant from the election board e-mailed me a cover sheet and ballot. I printed both, completed them, scanned them into a PDF file format and e-mailed them back.

Since my computer at work isn't hooked up to a printer, and I don't have access to a fax machine or scanner, I had to go to Kenji's office (twice!) and bother him with this.

I went through the involved process because voting is important to me. I believe that every vote counts. (Even the ones all the way from Japan!) I believe it's not only a duty, but a privilege to vote. Many people in the world do not have the privilege of chosing their leaders, and I don't want to take it for granted that I do.

I encourage you to spend a few minutes of your day to drive to your local polling place and exercise your right and duty.

God bless America!