Don't Sit This Out. Please.

Don't sit tomorrow's election out. Go vote.Think your vote "doesn't matter". I disagree. Recently in the MA3 Congressional District Primary, less than 150 (recounted) votes was the difference between the eventual winner, Lori Trahan and second place, Dan Koh. Yeah, those 150 votes mattered. Quite a bit as it turned out. Your vote might just be a deciding factor; go vote.Yes, I agree with you that the electoral college is an abomination but we are in the mid-terms and the electoral college won't be a factor this time. Maybe who you vote for will be able to help change the presidential election process; however, so go vote.Good ol' boy/girl network making you think it's pointless. Vote anyway. It will only be pointless if you don't vote your heart and mind. If the candidate for office is unopposed and you write in a name, that also sends a message. As I learned in Latin class, illegitimi non carborundum. You can look that one up and then go vote.Does an Election Day on a November Tuesday seem inconvenient?  (The answer to why we vote on the first Tuesday in November is here.) Your vote could change that; after all many states allow early voting now.  Absentee ballots can still be petitioned for and submitted prior to noon today (see MA Secretary of State Absentee Voting or call your City/Town elections office). And although the Early Voting window is closed for this election, you can and should still go vote.Hard to get to the polls? Need a ride? Contact candidate campaign offices. Oftentimes there are volunteers who can help with that. And by-the-way, the rumors about free Lyft and Uber rides are not exactly true. Here's the straight talk dispelling rumor and misunderstanding from Snopes. Get a ride and go vote.In Massachusetts, the polls must be open from 7 am until 8 pm; some places are allowed to open at 5:45 am, so check with your city or town election office. If you are in line at 8 pm, you must be allowed to vote. DO NOT GET OUT OF LINE (that is also true for most other states). The Massachusetts Secretary of State's Office has a detailed list of when (and why) you might be asked for identification and also about requesting a "provisional ballot". Check here. Know the voting regulations and go vote.Listen, we all need to make time for this civic obligation. There are some important issues that are being decided and even more coming in the future. You may or may not be cancelling out my vote; go vote anyway.

Why Vote?

This is a local election day in Lowell, MA. Both City Council and School Committee representatives will be decided upon by the end of the day. Local pundits are predicting a low turnout, and I for one hope they are totally off base. Not exercising your right to vote is something that I just don't understand. Don't people want to have a voice in who represents them?In the late part of the 19th century, women and especially married women had little in the way of citizen's rights and they most certainly could not vote or hold office. While unmarried women could inherit money, married women could not. I've been reading the history of women's voting rights in one of my ancestral heartlands, Missouri, and while this is Missouri's story, there are probably many commonalities with other states.My great grandmother, Minnie Palmer Flournoy was made a young widow in 1891 when her husband Richard was killed in a tragic train accident. As a widow with two very young children, she had to fight the railroad through an attorney to get a settlement for Richard's untimely death. I have that correspondence in my genealogy files. If memory serves me correctly, she received the princely sum of $500.When women of Missouri demonstrated for the suffragette movement, my great-grandmother was part of that. I often have wondered if her motivation and support for the 19th Amendment could have had its beginning in the treatment she received from the railroad when her husband died.Nearly every time that I vote, I think of the courage my great-grandmother had to muster to participate in the suffragette marches. I am grateful, but also awed because women like Minnie Flournoy had the extraordinary courage to demand the right to participate in our representative democracy. They did not give up on this idea even when the measures were defeated as they were several times in Missouri.This morning I voted as I have on nearly every Election Day since I was old enough to do so. To do otherwise would be a disservice to those women who recognized a wrong that needed to be made right.

There Are Consequences

We teach students that there are consequences for their actions and choices. Well, there should be consequences for the INaction of adults as well.Teachers, paraprofessionals, cafeteria workers and custodial workers have been without a contract in Lowell for over 450 days. My understanding - as I am recently retired, I no longer attend union informational meetings - is that this is driven by several factors. Included in the list of factors would be cancelled and perpetually postponed meetings of the negotiating teams. That in itself surely does not indicate that contracts are of high - or actually any - priority.I've heard the reports of concessions, not the specifics. However, it is an election year; it would not be unreasonable to think some who are negotiating the contracts with the Unions would like to make a grand political statement.With tight municipal budgets, no one is expecting exorbitant monetary increases, like the 15% pay raise I learned of for a first-year hire at a private corporation. And just as a point of interest, even retirees (not from this past June, but all prior retirees) received a cost of living raise of 3% from the Commonwealth's Teacher Retirement Board.  (The details and the history of which are found here.)I am concerned by the reports of demands in the negotiations. No, I don't know specifics, but asking for additional time (longer days? less preparation? longer school years?), giving back previously negotiated benefits, those things represent a disrespect for the talented people who make this school system one of the best achieving urban districts in Massachusetts.One financial impact of this is that, hard-earned pensions are calculated based upon a salary rate that has not changed for 450 days. For those who may not know, pension benefits are based on a formula which includes an average of three highest years of earning (for most teachers, that would be the last 3 years of service). Thus, the pension that recent retirees have earned will be impacted for the rest of their lives. That's not insignificant. Nor is it fair.The consequence?  I am a registered voter who is doing due diligence. I am watching the field of candidates for school and city offices. The consequence of inaction, will indeed be action.