Informed Enough

I’m not informed enough to vote the whole ballot today.  I know who I’m voting for Congress and my local water district.  But there’s a lot more stuff on the ballot than that.  Props.  Judges.  School board peeps.  So I’m gonna do a bit of research today and make my cheat sheet.

By research I mean asking friends who are more informed than I am, looking at the endorsements from my local paper of choice, and generally googling. When in doubt and when possible, I’ll vote my party.

But there’s numbered things and same-party local official races and all kinds of stuff that counts too. So I’ll look at that today, and vote by mail this week, which I get to do here.

I generally feel about government the same way I feel about my plumbing or my Internet: I just want it to work and if it doesn’t work I want someone else to take care of it.

I don’t want to deal, I don’t want to know. I’m grateful the people — not me — who are into all of the how’s and what’s of it are willing to take care of business, keep things going.

But sometimes I have to do something. Every couple of years I have to vote, kind of like paying the plumber bill. I don’t need to re-pipe my toilet myself but I do need to write a check.

And if I don’t love how my faucets are fauceting or I hear that my plumber has been ripping off my friends or has not been delivering what was promised to me, or I get a flyer advertising a new plumber offering better service, it’s my job to hire the new person.

This is the minimal household management I have to do to keep my house in order. Voting is the minimal community management I have to do, I get to do, to take care of my world.

And I’ll get informed enough this week, vote, and then go back to trusting all this stuff to people more into it than I am. What a privilege. What a responsibility. I’m gonna keep going.

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