where is my ballot - where is it (in which Jen gets all Michael Moore on your ass)

It's Election Day Eve. Somewhere in this great nation little voters' heads are filling with visions of new council members, approved budgets, and multi-million dollar bond issues. Somewhere responsible citizens are perusing League of Women Voter publications and sorting through libelous junk mail from competing candidates. Somewhere the senior citizen buses are getting their gas tanks topped up.

But not here.

You see, there is no election here tomorrow. There's nothing to vote for.

This is the first time in all my years as an eligible voter that I haven't had something to vote for on Election Day. Part of this may be attributed to my maintaining permanent residency in New York much longer than I actually lived there... but that's not the point. The point is, this is America. This is a democracy, dammit. And I want to go into a little booth and pull a lever. Or stand at a Rubbermaid-like desk, eerily reminscent of a kitchen table-top cereal-box fort, and connect the dots on scantron forms.

I want to converge on my local elementary school gym and stand in line with the other people who live in my neighborhood. I want to dodge the campaign people on the way in and the exit poll people on the way out. I want results in the newspaper.

But no. Not this year.

How is this promoting good citizenship? If we want a higher turnout at the polls, shouldn't we encourage the voting habit with regular elections?

There must be something that needs deciding.

Want to spend money? I'll tell you where to spend it. Want to oppress people? I'll tell you where to stick it.

Want to know what to do? Take it to the people.

And give me something to vote for.