Election day: Monkey says...

Do not oppress people or force them to vote Fez! (Honestly, I'm just using this as an excuse to post very fun pictures of my kitty friends.)

Voting should be something people do willingly and freely. It's very sad, yet interesting that America, the "ideal" of democracy has such a poor voter turn-out.

Compare U.S. voting with foreign voting, and it's not a pretty sight. Americans are less apt to vote than are people in other old democracies, in new ones, in dangerous places, poor ones, cold ones, hot ones and highly dysfunctional ones. The United States lags about 130 countries.

And interestingly enough it mostly has to do with culture. Some state, like Minnesota and Wisconsin, have some of the highest voter turnout in the country and it's not because you can register to vote the day of elections (though that helps) but because of their culture of civic duty. Which makes sense. In my family, voting was very important and taken very seriously. Thus, all of us kids vote with regularity.

Today, in soggy, rainy Seattle, it is election day. We will be following the results around the country and then later this evening Pygmy and I will go to party headquarters to watch the results from around the country. I'm looking forward to that part because I've never done it. The last few years I've worked elections and would, consequently, find myself at Jill's house at 4 a.m. nearly drunk and agruing over politics among the few other drunken friends still there at that ungodly hour. This year, I hope, it's different...

I'm an optimist. It will be.