Ballot arrived

 But first, reading and learning goes on.  I'm reading the Ta-Nehisi Coates, but in short bursts. It's so intense and so true, that it takes some digesting.  It's written as if to his son, and it's very moving. Particularly a propos at this moment.

Then, to recover, I'm catching old radio drama on YouTube.  This is BBC Saturday Night Theatre, a staple of my youth, when if you didn't go dancing, you might tune in. Great actors and very good productions.  This is one celebrating Sybil Thorndike, who plays the lead. It's a Margery Sharp novel dramatized. Sharp is entertaining, very astute, with less asperity than Muriel Spark, but similar time period, and similar social assumptions.

And my mail-in ballot has arrived.  As you see, I live in Middlesex County, and since counties send out ballots in waves, you may not have received yours yet if you live in another county.  

It looks so slight, but this is the lever of power, literally in our hands.  Please note: this year the ballot has two sides. Remember to turn it over and continue, so as to register your votes for local issues such as Fire Commissioner, School Board, and most important for all of us: public questions.

On the public questions, we get to vote on legalization of marijuana, on property tax refunds to noncombat veterans and their widows/widowers, and a constitutional amendment to adjust the schedule for legislative district reorganization as a result of the census. The census count is late this year, because of all the court fights, so the Governor may not receive the information in time to follow the normal schedule.

Anyway, read the instructions that come with it, to be sure you know what you're agreeing to or dissenting from.

Before you're done, sign the certificate attached to the enveloped into which you've put and sealed your completed ballot.  DO NOT TEAR OFF THE CERTIFICATE. I think people do this from force of habit from paying bills, tearing off the stub that accompanies your payment.  But in this case it's vital to leave it attached. They say this on both sides, in several languages!

That's because it's the proof you give the election officials that this is your own ballot.  They then remove and preserve the certificate and accept the sealed ballot into the stream of ballots to be counted.  But if you've torn off your certificate, you have voided your vote.  This year with all the attacks on the vote, the last thing we need to do is suppress our own vote!

So there's my public service announcement to you if you're a NJ voter. If you vote by mail elsewhere, you know to read the instructions!  And today, the day of RBG's official lying in state service, is a good day for me to do my little bit to shore up our country's strengths and try to mitigate its weaknesses.  We're a young country, still with much to do.

But every woman reading this in the US who has taken out a loan, a mortgage, a credit card, in her own name, has RBG to thank for a lot of it. There are so many paths she broke for a lot of us, not just women, that it's good to remember she used to say that lasting change takes place a bit at a time.  We can remember that as we face massive tasks in the near future.

Bit by bit. Bird by bird. We can do this. Blogistas in other countries, send good vibes!