{"id":685,"date":"2010-10-18T11:48:45","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T11:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html"},"modified":"2010-10-18T11:48:45","modified_gmt":"2010-10-18T11:48:45","slug":"i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html","title":{"rendered":"I voted early (and you should too)"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ivoted.gif\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/75\/import\/ivoted.gif\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px;text-align: right\" width=\"265\" height=\"146\" \/><\/span> I voted this morning. Wisconsin is an early voting state, which means you can cast your vote (using the absentee ballot) in person anytime until election day itself. As it happens, I actually <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/if-youve-wondered-why-ive.html\">will be absent on election day<\/a>, but anyone can cast an early ballot in this state (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.raiseyourvote.com\/\">and 25 others<\/a>). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/IMG00101-20101018-0918.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG00101-20101018-0918.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/75\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/IMG00101-20101018-0918-thumb-300x225-18657.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/a><\/span>I cast my vote for a straight Democratic ticket. The reason is my general alarm over the direction of the Republican Party &#8211; especially their <a href=\"http:\/\/search.blog.beliefnet.com\/cgi-bin\/mt\/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=126&amp;tag=War%20on%20Muslims&amp;limit=20\">War on Muslims<\/a> and fearmongering about Islam, and their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/blog\/2010\/09\/29\/white-house-white-board-cea-chair-austan-goolsbee-explains-tax-cut-fight\">outright lies about middle class taxes<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/ezra-klein\/budget\/\">the federal deficit<\/a>. I voted to protect Social Security from Wall Street&#8217;s casinos, I voted in defense of preventive medicine and health insurance for children, and I voted in favor of high speed rail.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve several friends and family members who have indicated that they don&#8217;t see a need to go out and vote. All voted for Obama in the last election, but their apathy boils down to this: &#8220;at least the Republicans will let me keep more of my money.&#8221; They are mistaken, but only because they have real lives and are not dedicated political junkies. The failure this election cycle was entirely the democrats&#8217; &#8211; and Obama&#8217;s &#8211; to communicate to the average voter, even a nominal supporter, why it matters. That communication needed to be year-round, it needed to be on mass media and not just political spots. <\/p>\n<p>If you are in an early voting state, you need to go out and vote today. Not tomorrow. That&#8217;s the bottom line. <\/p>\n<p>Related: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amconmag.com\/larison\/2010\/10\/15\/facing-down-the-threat-of-absentee-voting\/\">good post by Daniel<\/a> about the nonexistent threat of fraud from absentee voting. Really, absentee and early voting should be nationalized into law, as should a national Voting Day holiday (we can drop the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Columbus_Day\">obscene paean to a genocidal madman<\/a> to keep the total number of federal holidays the same). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I voted this morning. Wisconsin is an early voting state, which means you can cast your vote (using the absentee ballot) in person anytime until election day itself. As it happens, I actually will be absent on election day, but anyone can cast an early ballot in this state (and 25 others). I cast my&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[275,384,25,26,32,383],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purple-politics","tag-democrats","tag-election-day-10","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-republicans","tag-voting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I voted early (and you should too) - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I voted early (and you should too) - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I voted this morning. Wisconsin is an early voting state, which means you can cast your vote (using the absentee ballot) in person anytime until election day itself. As it happens, I actually will be absent on election day, but anyone can cast an early ballot in this state (and 25 others). I cast my&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-18T11:48:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/import\/ivoted.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I voted early (and you should too) - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I voted early (and you should too) - City of Brass","og_description":"I voted this morning. Wisconsin is an early voting state, which means you can cast your vote (using the absentee ballot) in person anytime until election day itself. As it happens, I actually will be absent on election day, but anyone can cast an early ballot in this state (and 25 others). I cast my&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2010-10-18T11:48:45+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/import\/ivoted.gif"}],"author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html","name":"I voted early (and you should too) - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/import\/ivoted.gif","datePublished":"2010-10-18T11:48:45+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-18T11:48:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/import\/ivoted.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/import\/ivoted.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/10\/i-voted-early-and-you-should-t-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I voted early (and you should too)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}