Wednesday, November 17, 2010

WSJ: Save Election Day!

From Eliot Cutler's op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal:
Finally, I am convinced that we lose something intangible but important when we make voting just another item on our fall to-do list.

As I greeted voters at polling stations around Maine on Election Day, I saw countless sons and daughters casting their first votes, proudly accompanied by their parents. Squeezing into the booths with elders, younger children learn a civics lesson that no book can teach.

The act of voting together on Election Day has represented an important affirmation of democracy and citizenship since the earliest days of our nation. However inconvenient, standing in line to vote reminds us that our democracy is a shared enterprise and that, no matter our individual circumstances, every person in line has just one vote.