Trickery Is Often the Fastest Method

I love to vote. I don't always know who I'm going to vote for so I often leave several fields blank, but I still love to vote.

I think it's important to vote. I don't feel like I have a right to complain about what's going on in our government if I don't take the time to voice my own opinion. Plus, I consider it a privilege and testament to our great country. Not everyone gets the opportunity to participate in the selection of their government.

Matt is less convinced.

I think he's definitely become more "politically aware" over the last 7 1/2 years since we've been together, but he's still not up to the Shipman standard of rabid political opinions (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), and is much less concerned than I about who wins the "small stuff".

Almost every day, there is something that I ask Matt if he is going to do (like vacuum the den, call his mom, mow the yard, etc.). I almost always get the same response: a shrug and "Yeah". That should usually be translated as "no".

When I got the same response from him about whether or not he was going to vote, I knew he had no intention of casting his ballot. I, of course, gave him the lecture about how it was important, his civic duty, yada, yada, yada. He was still not convinced.

How could my own husband not care about voting? This could reflect very badly on me. I even put up a post reminding people to hit the polls (and this wasn't even for a major election).

Well, thankfully, a solution materialized later that afternoon. Manda left work early for our usual gym appointment. I either had to meet her at the gym and skip the ballot or work out alone. Then I realized... the polls don't close until 7pm!! I went to meet Amanda straight from work, went home, changed, and told Matt that I (we) were going to vote on our way to meet his mother for dinner.

Ah ha! He was instantly clued into my scheming and informed me that he hadn't even researched who was running for what, and who he liked. "No problem," I said. Just vote for the candidates you already know you agree with, or simply stick to the yes/no question (the tax hike... you can pretty much do this one without a whole lot of research effort).

I nervously checked the sheet as we showed our IDs and were marked off of the list. What if Matt wasn't even registered at our new location? (I knew he was at our last house - we voted for the last presidential election together). A feeling of relief came over me as I saw both of our names on the list. Matt was eligible to vote!

When we got our ballots, he asked if it was against the rules to discuss our answers before we turned them in. I don't mind sharing. Of course, I don't want to be accused of unfairly influencing the vote either.

In the end, he only filled out the tax hike addendum, but I was completely satisfied and left feeling giddy as I looked over at his "I Voted" sticker. He commented that he thought I was getting a special pleasure out of the fact that he was now on record as voting in a primary - and he was right.

This worked so much better than nagging! Now, I just have to figure out a way to get him to start on that "honey do" list...