WHO WAS THE FIRST CANDIDATE YOU VOTED FOR?
"That's hard to remember.  But I think it must have been Eisenhower. I liked him 'cause he was military. I always liked military men. I always liked him cause he said it straight, said things the way it was."

WERE YOU EXCITED TO BE ABLE TO VOTE?
"Nah, I just voted cause they said you had to vote. And then what happened was I was Republican (my husband was Republican). I didn't know any difference between Republican or Democrat. They came and picked me up, I didn't know who they were."

WHO PICKED YOU UP?
"These people used to pick you up to go and vote. When I got there, I didn't understand anything. I voted the way that they told me. They changed my party! I told my husband and he wanted to know how they did that! He said "they're not allowed to do that!" I didn't know. They came and picked me up to vote! Even then they (politicians) were pulling that stuff."

WAS IT COMMON PRACTICE TO GET PICKED UP TO VOTE THEN?
"That's what they did years ago. They'd call and see if you had a way to go and if not, they'd pick you up. That was nice, so I said "yeah!". After that though, I didn't do that again. "

WILL YOU ONLY VOTE FOR PEOPLE IN YOUR PARTY?
"I only voted my party. I couldn't figure out who was what. At least now you learn more on tv."

DO YOU FIND THAT CAMPAIGNS NOW ARE MORE HELPFUL OR CONFUSING?
"They're more confusing. It was more simple before. I believe that, you believe this."

HAVE YOU EVER NOT VOTED?
"I always vote for the president. The local I never did till a couple of years ago. I realized and understood why you're suppose to vote locally."


WHEN YOU CAME TO THE U.S. (FROM ITALY) WHAT MADE YOU GRATEFUL TO BE IN AMERICA?
"I was grateful just to be here. No matter what.  Cause when you come here and come from another country, it's completely different."

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCES?
You have more liberty and freedom. You can speak freely.  When I went to get my citizenship, and the guy that was there started asking me all the questions, he asked me if I knew what communism was. I said no. I was too young to know what they really were. I knew them as the ones that wore the black shirts and you couldn't say or doing anything near them or they'd arrest you. This guy wanted to make sure I knew what a communist was. He told me he wanted me to go home to find out what communism was."

WHY WAS HE TRYING SO HARD TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT A COMMUNIST WAS?
"I don't know. But I went home, cause he wouldn't pass me for it- just for that. So my cousin went to the library and found out what a communist was called. It's some long word. He wrote it down for me on a piece of paper and I went back there. There was another guy there. And I gave it to him and told him that was the name of the communist party and that my cousin had to go to the library to find out. The guy just laughed (wondering why she gave it to him). I told him, the guy before you didn't pass me because I didn't know what a communist was. I told him what I knew but I didn't know more. I was young. I lived on a farm. We don't hear nothing. Then I said "maybe that guy is a a communist!"

DID HE PASS YOU?
"Oh yeah." 
"America is opportunity. Especially then, not like it is today. It was respect. Proud to be an American. I went to Italy a while ago and they said "we have America over here". I agree. They have everything. More than we do in some ways. They have homes that are gorgeous. Maybe we have more money flowing, but they have everything they want. They have healthcare, welfare help too.  No country is like her though. Even as bad as we have it now, it's still the best."

WHEN YOU HEAR THAT SOMEONE DOESN'T VOTE, HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?
"It upsets me. Because they don't know what they're doing. What they should do, is send them to these other countries, not in luxury, not with their money. Let them go and live like the people in those countries do and then they'll see (what they have). My cousin's son is a policeman in Italy. He just bought a home and is fixing it up and said he wanted to come to America. He said he would work very hard to make fast money to bring home. I said that America isn't the way it used to be. You can't just come here and make lots of money, there's not that many jobs anymore. I asked how much he makes. He said he makes $2000 a month. I said "well, you're better off than we are. Because you don't have to pay insurance and that stuff."

WHO DO YOU THINK WAS THE BEST PRESIDENT WE EVER HAD, IN YOUR TIME?
"Eisenhower and Reagan. They did things for the country. They at least tried. They were more bold. They said it the way it is."

IS THAT SOMETHING YOU'D LIKE TO CHANGE IN THE FUTURE?
"Oh yeah. I now believe it would make a difference. As a child and young adult, I am still young (20's), I didn't think it'd make a difference. But I do now believe it impacts everyone. With taxes and things of that nature."

SO YOU CAN SEE YOURSELF IN THE NEXT ELECTION GETTING MORE INVOLOVED?
"I definitely would. I mean I'm not hiding in the dark with it all. I just don't know too much about it- to just go and vote. Because then if they messed up the world, I'd feel like it was my fault. Then I'd feel like if I didn't vote for him, maybe he wouldn't have messed up the world. Kind of a mind conflict."

HAVE YOU EVER NOT VOTED? WHAT KEPT YOU FROM VOTING IN THAT ELECTION(S)?
Actually, I did miss an election once.  I had a stomach bug or something.  I made my (then) husband 
(who had no intention of voting) go vote for the candidates I wanted to win

WHAT IS THE GREATEST LENGTH YOU HAVE GONE TO IN ORDER TO CAST YOUR VOTE?
I don’t know. Voting has never been difficult for me and I do appreciate that fact.  I know that many are not so fortunate. People wait hours, travel long distances, put much effort into being able to vote and that is just in this country.  So many people world wide don’t have that opportunity, we shouldn’t dismiss our privilege so easily.

WHY DO YOU FEEL IT'S IMPORTANT TO VOTE?
"It gives you a voice."

YOU WORK BEHIND THE SCENES? (As a committee person and poll worker)
"Yes."

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED WITH THAT? 
"My whole life. I remember being four years old and going up and hanging at the election polls and playing on the little machines. Going around and delivering the circulars."

HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED AT SUCH AN EARLY AGE?
"My father made me. I had no choice. He moved up into the area in 1968-69, he was the committee person and I took over in '94."

HAVE YOU SEEN CHANGES IN VOTER TURNOUT OR PEOPLE'S FAITH IN THE SYSTEM OVER THE YEARS?
"Yeah. Our generation doesn't vote." [GENERATION X]

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?
"'Because they don't care."

DO YOU REALLY THINK THEY DON'T CARE? 
"Yeah. I see it. People care but they don't wanna improve it. They have a lot to say but they don't want to look into who's gonna be better for their surroundings or their neighborhoods. Or they don't realize that there is actually something they can do."

WHY DO YOU THINK THEY FEEL THAT WAY? 
"Because the whole process is screwed up. To be put on the ballot, you have to have close to a million dollars. That's just to be put on the ballot. So that means a politician with all the right ideas, he sounds good, looks good, really wants to do something, but now he's gotta go out and raise a million dollars to get put on a ballot. Now everyone that gives him money, he owes a favor to. And now, let's say you get money from the plumbers union, the electrical union, the carpenters union, you owe all three of them a favor. But two of them want the same favor, who do you give it to? You're always pissing someone off. And that ruins the whole process. Another thing that ruins the process is all the stupid ass commercials, all the literature you get in the mail, all the phone calls you get at home, all the lawn signs you see in the middle of the Boulevard. That ruins elections. I don't wanna know what my opponent did wrong. I don't care what he did wrong. I wanna show who I am. And the problem with today, is everyone's putting the other person down and not saying what they're actually gonna do to make it better. Nobody cares about making it better, they just wanna make the other person look worse."

SO IT'S LIKE A POPULARITY CONTEST?
"It's not even a popularity contest, it's who lies the best. There's so many ways to stop this. And the money that's wasted on campaigning is incredible. If you take one election, take all the money that every politician spends, you could  pay the national debt off in one election."

DO YOU HAVE ANY UNUSUAL STORIES FROM OVER THE YEARS?
"Like I said, from an early age, I was always involved in the election process. And I didn't care who got elected. I didn't think it mattered. So when I was just able to vote, my father was very involved. He would go around, he knew the whole neighborhood, everyone knew him, and every major election for a couple years (back then there was actually a communist party) I would go in and vote how I was told to vote, but I would put one vote for the communist party. And I would sit there and watch my father go out of his mind trying to figure out who the communist was. I did that for probably five years and I never told anyone till right before my mom died (his father had already passed). And then she just called me an asshole." 

SO DO YOU FEEL THAT SOME ELECTIONS ARE MORE IMPORTANT TO VOTE IN THAN OTHERS? 
"I think the presidential election and some bigger elections may be more popular, but I feel that they aren't as important to vote in, because in my eyes they don't matter as much. The ones where your vote counts more is the county elections, the state and city representatives. They're the people that actually have a voice for your community. And you have to work from the inside out. If you start with your community, you do have a voice."

Tomorrow is Tuesday, November 4, 2014. And it is a midterm election year. During this election 33 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate will be contested. Not to mention all 435 seats in the House of Representatives as well. There will also be 38 elections for governor and 46 for state legislatures. Plus there will be numerous other state and local races. And while the "smaller" elections don't seem to garner the kind of fervent attention that a presidential election brings out, these are still an important part of the political process and a key factor in determining what life will be like wherever it is that you are living, right?

So why is it that out of the 56 people that I asked the simple question "are you voting next week?", a mere 12 could give me a definite affirmative answer. Twelve. So, we set out to talk to people about voting. Do they? Don't they? And just how and why they've come to hold the feelings they have about the process. 

I was always told of a saying that said, " there's two things you never discuss with friends if you want to remain friends, religion and politics". Why? Because people don't want to expose their feelings for fear of being judged? Because they fear that those they talk to may not see eye to eye? Because political differences can end friendships, burn bridges, incite riots? All of this may be true, but I prefer to rest my belief on a different saying. Adapted from Shakespeare's Tempest, "politics makes strange bedfellows", advises that political interests can actually unite people who may otherwise have little in common. 
And so with that, we invited people tell us how they feel about voting; about the pros and cons, the benefits and drawbacks, and how, when and why they go to the polls.
So follow us this week and join the conversation. We want to hear from you!