Weekly Wrap UP 11/06/20 -- Participating in the Election

I am not one to be really political but the last four years have been interesting and for the first time ever, I decided that I had to get involve and actually do something instead of complain about the events happening in our country!

I didn't say anything on the blog  until the election was over as I didn't want my blog to turn political. This blog is to document what my family does.   However now that the election is over and regardless of whether my candidate won our not, I thought I would talk about what I did to help the candidates that I believed in.

The 3 easiest things I did was to:  1. send money to a campaign.  I know I donated several times to different candidates over the past six months!  2.  Get a yard sign and put it up proudly!  I had 3 yard signs for three different candidates leading up to the elections.  3. VOTE in every election not just the presidential election but in the midterms and even in the local counties ones.  With my daughter away at college we had her register to vote in her college town!  I don't think I voted until my late twenties, something I regret and am making sure my kids do not do!

We decided to do early voting and headed to the government office to vote.  We arrived at 8 am and this was the line to vote. The entrance was the second green triangle.  It took about an hour to vote.  Fun thing they did was anytime a first time voter arrive inside the poll room they rang cow bells and clapped.  Wish my daughter was with us for that, but she will be voting at college.

Successfully voted! We wanted to do it in person to make sure our vote COUNTED!  

Firedrake voted at college!

There are several more things that I did which require more effort on my part -- 

I contacted a local campaign and sign up and learned how to make phone calls for a politician.  I started making phone calls in September and continued until the election.  Every Sunday I sat down and made phone calls and tried to stump for the candidate I believe in!.  It wasn't easy, I am not one to really talk on the phone to strangers, but I did it!  Most of the people didn't answer the phone, a few were pleasant and those who didn't want to talk hung up on me.  It wasn't too bad, but I am not good at talking off the cuff with a stranger about their political views.  I can honestly say no one was verbally rude or mean on the phone in all the weeks I participated.  The worst thing that happened was being hung up on!

In Oct, I signed up for another training class to learn how to send texts for a candidate.  I again volunteered once a week (in addition to phone calling) to text 500 to 1000 people per session.  Again most people didn't respond to the texts but a few did and had questions that I was able to help either answer or lead them to the right person to aid in answering their questions.  What truly surprised me was the vitriol that some people spewed back to me on a text.  I could never imagine writing some of the things that were sent back.    At first I as surprised and then I started to laugh hysterically at the meanness or just inappropriateness of some of the responses.  I actually enjoyed the texting more than the phone calling.  The rudeness of the responses by some didn't bother me at all!  I was a little surprised by my reaction to it honestly!

For both texting and making phone calls I used an app that gave out phone numbers that weren't mine so know one could track me down, which was my husband's only concern.  It wasn't hard and didn't cost a thing!  Since my husband works in the government he was unable to participate in any campaigning so it was all up to me to figure it out.  

I learned a great deal about the political process over the last several months.  While our country remains polarized it is important to get involved and educate people, because they're a lot of uneducated voters out there and it is truly shocking what conspiracy theories people will believe.  

So I did my part, I got involved and I showed my kids that if you want to change the the world you must get involved and put in the work.  Did I make a difference, I hope so, but if not, at least I can say I tried and I got involved and that is what is important!  Will I continue to get involve in future elections, I am not sure, but I think that is a strong possibility as it wasn't as hard as I thought!