I voted

Did you?

This picture is circa 1910. As a woman, the mother in the picture does not legally have the right to vote. Her daughter, born in 1903, would be almost 18 when Vermont (her home state) would ratify the 19th Amendment in Feb. 1921.


This was the first election where Hunter & I have gone to vote together. As a service member living in a state other than his home state, he chose to maintain his VA residency & therefore, voted via absentee ballot. After bringing Sunshine to school today we went to vote together & saw several of our neighbors at the polls, as well as several parents from Sunshine's school.

We take voting very seriously in our house. We discuss politics & manage to be nonpartisan in our conversations with Sunshine. I want her to form her own opinions based on the knowledge she has been given.

I normally vote for a candidate based on their platform or what they've done during their previous term in office. Today I voted against a candidate based on his inability (or his staff's inability) to return a phone call & letter. Two months ago, Hunter was having problems getting information regarding money owed to him from the VA. If you've never had the opportunity to deal with their phone system, thank God. Their phone lines open at 8 am. If you call after say, 11, you're told to hang up & try your call again tomorrow as all lines are busy. Disconnect, thankyouverymuch. Even calling at 8 am doesn't mean your call will be answered in a timely manner. It's nothing to wait 30 minutes to speak with someone. And if you manage to speak with someone, it's rare that they will even be able to help you.

So back to this phone call & letter that went unanswered. Under the Post 9/11-GI Bill qualifying soldiers (all military, but we'll just use solider) are entitled to a certain number of months of tuition, a living stipend & book money. Hunter had no problem getting his tuition paid, but for some reason his living stipend & book money were in arrears. Which we expected, but not to the degree we experienced. Calling the VA was frustrating as I indicated above. IF he did manage to speak to someone, he was told the money would be deposited "soon!" and that it was "coming". But it never came. It was suggested to us to contact our senators & representative, which we did. Two of them followed through with phone calls and letters. The third didn't. At all. So today at the polls, I exercised my right to not vote for someone whose staff clearly didn't see the need to exercise their ability to help those who put them in office in the first place.

By the way, that mother in Vermont in 1910 who didn't have the right to vote? My great-grandmother. The little girl in the picture was my Grammy.