Tonight, I asked my Citizenship Class, “What is one thing you will be able to do when you become a citizen?”  There are lots of answers to this question, but tonight, they all answered, “Vote!”   They know that in the Revolution, men died in battle to win this right. I didn’t think this was the time to point out that, not very long ago, women were thrown into jail when they crusaded for this right and when they went on hunger strikes they had feeding tubes stuffed down their throats.

Of course, this is in Hawaii.

Thank goodness, in Oregon, we all vote by mail because we’d be going to the polls in rain gear, not flip flops.  I don’t show an ID when I hand my ballot to my postman.  You can register to vote online and voter fraud is extraordinarily rare here.

Another totally random Oregon factoid I have to mention: Tonight driving home in the rain from teaching, I saw three cars signal that they needed to change lanes and each time a car in the needed lane just slowed down to let them in.  No one around here knows what it means to “cut me off.”  It does rain about 200 days out of the year but everyone says “We sure do need it.”

Interesting note: In Texas (pop. 26.45 mil.) where they have new stringent voter ID regulations to prevent fraud, there have been 18 confirmed instances of voter fraud since 2002. Hometown factoid:   There was a 2006 case in which a Pecos woman filled out and mailed ballots for others.  Anyone know who this was?

Vote.