I Voted Today

It is so easy to vote. 

Picking up the little pencil 

secured with string is easy.

An x beside a name isn’t hard. 

But getting to the voting booth 

is inconvenient. But are the candidates known to me? Sure there are other errands to do, 

but to include voting? 

I’ve been back in Regina since 2020. Taking the time to know the politicians has not been at the top of my list of things to do until this year. Listening to politicians vying for control ~ whether here or down south ~ 

shows them up. All cut from the same cloth. 

“I can fix it, you can’t’’

“Your ideas have no merit; mine are the best.” 

More grandiose, depending on the politician, 

but still the same. A lot of mud slinging with little substance.

It takes me back to a Monday night Explorers meeting 

in our church basement when I was about 13.

Odd that, in the 50’s, our leader was talking politics to us. 

She posed a question that has stayed with me through many elections:

“Who should you vote for ~ the man or the party?”  

There have always been women in politics, 

but it was not the norm. Today that question 

would read ‘the candidate or the party? 

So I listen to and watch debates. 

I want to see the candidates, 

I want to hear them and 

I want to witness their behaviour. 

Then I make my decision. 

Weeks ago it was the U.S. election

Today it was the Saskatchewan Provincial election. 

“If you don’t vote, you lose the right to complain.”

~ George Carlin