Is it worth it to cast one’s ballot in advance of Election Day? I’d say so

I’m going to be headed to an early voting center some time this week to cast my ballot in advance of the Nov. 6 general election, yet I realize there are some people who do not approve.

Imagery dated, but sentiment the same

And not just because they realize I’m highly unlikely to support the re-election bid of Bruce Rauner – or anybody whose campaign is predicated on the notion of wanting to strengthen the political hand of Donald Trump during the next two years.

THERE ARE THOSE who believe we honestly need to wait until the absolute last minute to learn every single bit of information they can about the candidates before deigning to cast a ballot for anybody.

They actually see merit in the last-minute disclosures in the final weeks, sometimes even days, of the campaign. Usually nasty and spiteful in nature, they want to know these bits of dirt that can sway people to vote against someone.

They’d argue I might wind up voting for someone for whom a scuzzy bit of detail exists. As though there’s anything legitimate about these tidbits of trivial detail.

You may have figured out by now that I don’t think much of these “October Surprise” tactics – which mostly are meant to discourage people who are contemplating support for a particular candidate.

IN SHORT, I’M convinced that anybody who’s seriously holding out detail until the final days of the election cycle is more interested in playing partisan political games rather than disclosing information that truly has any significance.

And I say that regardless of which political party is waiting until the final minute before disclosing their gossipy tidbit. Because I truly admit all political parties are capable of such nonsense tactics.

Seriously, we in Illinois had our primary elections back in March. We’ve had seven months to study the candidates and figure out what they stand for – and who they’d be supportive of if they were to get elected.

Just as much nonsense rhetoric as there was a century or so ago

Which, in all honestly, is what most of us base our ballot actions upon. Most of us are nowhere near as high-minded idealistic as we’d like to claim to be.

TAKE THE RECENT lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court against the J.B. Pritzker campaign, claiming mistreatment of its campaign workers who happened to be of racial or ethnic backgrounds (a.k.a., non-white).

The idea of J.B., the Democrat, being a closet bigot was supposed to be what took him down to defeat despite the huge leads he had in the polls.. Yet there has been such skepticism over the lawsuit’s merits that the people behind the legal action felt forced to have a press conference Monday, trotting out the disgruntled campaign workers, to try to sway the public.

Excuse me for thinking that any accusations that come out in future days will be of even less legitimacy than this lawsuit. Anybody who seriously is waiting to learn something significant is waiting for nothing.

As in they might as well go ahead and cast that ballot of theirs now. Because ultimately, every ballot we cast is a gamble. Everybody is going to have candidates with whom we placed too much faith in, and other instances where it turns out that the opposition candidate was probably deserving of our vote.

Anything more to know about either … 

BESIDES, WHAT HAPPENS if we wind up learning something on Nov. 7, or 10 or perhaps in December? Do we start demanding a “do over,” with the option of changing our vote to the person whom we wished we had voted for? Just as there's no crying in baseball, there's no do-overs in elections!

I really don’t think there would be anything gained by holding out until Nov. 6 before casting my ballot. If anything, this is an election cycle where I wish I could have cast a ballot some two months ago so it would be over and done with by now.

… of these candidates that's relevant?

So I’m likely to show up at a polling place this week to cast my vote – because I can time my vote to when the lines to wait are miniscule and because I’m a firm believer that people who don’t vote have no riht to complain about government actions.

Anybody who really knows me knows full well I’m a malcontent who insists on complaining about everyone and anything I encounter in life. If anything, such active thought is how we truly “make America great again,” not by holding out ‘til the last minute for any trivia that in the long run may turn out to be totally irrelevant to public policy.

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