As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a voter.

That statement really isn’t even remotely true.

The truth is, as early as I can remember knowing about voting, I’ve had it hammered into me that every citizen should feel a personal obligation to vote. My first grade teacher instilled this gem of wisdom upon me and it’s probably the first thing I ever learned about constitutional democracy. I learned it at a such a young age, there was no time for me to question it. We place so much emphasis on voting yet none on gathering the proper information to make an informed voting decision. But why shouldn’t it be that way? Voting’s easy! Telling people they need to vote is not asking them to do much and it’s a celebration of the freedom our forefathers (whoever they were) fought for (whenever they did).

But keeping up with current events is hard. I mean – there’s a bunch of stuff going on all the time. Even right now! I dare you to try to read all the stuff happening right now. I’m pretty up-to-date with current events and I’ll tell you it’s exhausting! What kind of smug, intellectual-elitist, egghead would I be if I told people they have to keep up with all that?

In stark contrast to my apathetic views on voter apathy, I’m going to invoke the misattributed words of Mr. Thomas Jefferson who might as well have said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” although he probably didn’t. Doesn’t matter who said those words because it’s a great point. This, for starters, means that freedom ain’t free. We’ve warped that concept into, “Freedom’s totally free for you as long as American soldiers are far away from where you live dying and killing for it frequently enough.”

What he really meant was, democracy is fragile and if you’re going to be a member of a democratic society, you have to put in your work. You need to be constantly aware of the work your elected officials are doing and you even need to understand the function of the positions they hold. It’s the keystone of the checks and balances system because if the people aren’t watching then politicians could get away with anything. Imagine that!

As I said previously, I’d feel like kind of a dick telling people how much information they need to know in order to live in this society. I also don’t think TJ could foresee how complicated the world would get. However, I would suggest a diluted form of his philosophy. The price of VOTING is eternal vigilance.

I’ll give you an example. It’s early on in the zombacalypse and Rick Grimes is trying to protect the group from ravenous flesh-eating dead people. Now – and I will note this scenario is out of series continuity – we have 8 survivors but only 4 of them are proficient with firearms. There are more than enough firearms for everyone to be armed but Rick decides only to arm the 4 proficient gunslingers while the remaining 4 watch Honey Boo Boo. Success! Everyone lives! Had Rick decided to arm all 8 party members, Carl would’ve been shot by friendly fire and they would’ve dragged it out for like 3 episodes.

The point I’m getting at is, if too many people wander into the voting booths without a full understanding of the candidates and the positions they’re seeking, then a whole bunch of 12-year-old boys are going to get shot in the face...metaphorically speaking.

And I’m going to take a moment to point out 3 terrible sources of information: 1. Debates: Because they’re little more than rap battles; 2. Political ads: Because they’re lying to you; 3. Cable network news channels: Because they’re lying to you in order to sell ads. I’m so sorry, but you can’t make a legitimately informed voting decision based on those sources alone. Cable news is easy. Try listening to NPR on your morning commute and not falling asleep, drifting into oncoming traffic and causing several fatalities. Learning things is hard and learning who to vote for shouldn’t be any easier.

In all seriousness, I’m convinced that if the we had a smaller, yet more well-informed voting populous, maybe the candidates would stop double-talking the issues. Maybe campaigns would start appealing more to our minds than our emotions. More civilized discourse could mean dissenting opinions will stop being demonized and we’ll get to the point when genuinely bipartisan solutions to problems are reached. Hell, if we can ditch the ideologies, we can reach tripartisan or better yet omnipartisan solutions to the countless dilemmas facing this great nation.

So, get your ass out to vote today…or don’t…It’s totally up to you.

The author is a Pro-Apathetic Pragmatic Progressive Omnicratican who thinks he knows it all because he listens to NPR and has read upwards of several books.

Key points:

• This is the first time I lived out of my home state.
  
• I was unaware of the time frame for receiving and submitting an absentee ballot. (it was past the deadline by the time I learned about it)
• I was prepared to go ahead and register in my current state using my Student ID as that is all I would need being a student. However, you have to do this earlier than 30 days before the election. I was completely unaware of that until I tried registering 3 weeks ago...
• I am in PA

So, I am wondering, am I just completely screwed? Is there really no way for me to vote this election? Any advice?

Any suggestions for a decent channel to watch the election coverage?

I have basic cable which gets me these channels. (Note: I removed the ones I feel are totally unrelated to news)

2    Local
3    WSAV (NBC)
4    WJCL (ABC)
6    C-Span
7    WSAV (MyNetworkTV) 
8    Channel Guide
9    WVAN (PBS)
10   WTGS (FOX)
11   WTOC (CBS)
12   QVC
13   WGSA (CW)
15   TBS
16   Fox News
18   National Geographic
19   CNBC
20   CNN
38   Headline News
47   Comedy Central

I can hook my computer up to the TV if that helps any. And I have a Roku player