Vote Vote Vote -- But are you really in the know

I watched this funny, but tragically sad video on quizzing some young Americans about basic civics who either don't know:

• The name of the Vice President
• The name of the Speaker of the House
• The name of the Senate Majority Leader
• # of members in the House of Representatives
• # of members in the US Senate
• # of members on the US Supreme Court
• etc.

I'm not saying this video is representative of young Americans, heck, it might apply to anyone over the age of 18, it does make me wonder how that civics class didn't sink in more.

What it does make me wonder though, there is this huge push by "the parties" to get out the vote. Yup, vote, vote, vote. I wonder how much ink has been spent in the past 4 weeks alone on junk mailers in hopes of swaying voters. I just throw 10-20 of these out every single day.

While I don't claim to be totally "in the know", I vote by mail. Did weeks ago. So...I love voting by mail, as I can have the ballot in front of me, and spent 5-10 minutes per each individual vote and research the 2-4 candidates for each office, local issues, etc. I spend more time if I feel I need to. Because I do not have a particular party affiliation, I try and vote for whomever I think will do the best job, I really want to evaluate the candidate and what they stand for, to see if it really lines up with my thinking, etc. Most of the time, it's a lesser of X options, sad but true.

That said, makes me wonder if The Peter Principle is at play here: Rise to the level of your incompetence. I've also read that 1 in 5 Americans can't find the USA on a map.

While I say yes, go vote...I sure hope everyone really knows what and whom they are voting for (to the best of their abilities), and not just tow the party line.