Yes, your vote DOES count!

I'm really tired of hearing from people that they aren't going to vote because their vote doesn't matter. I *might* be willing to concede that with the electoral college during a presidential election that your vote doesn't count as much in the state of Texas as it might in another state like Ohio or Florida -- you know, the "battleground states". However, that doesn't mean that you should stay home on election day because there's almost always other important races on the ballot at the same time.

Case in point -- my school district held a "special election" on October 4th for an increase in the property tax rate. The state legislature changed the system of taxes for school districts a few years ago and now all their rates have been drastically lowered and they have to hold an election in order to raise any rates. ANYWAY... my local district wanted to raise the rate by 13 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value in order to give teachers raises. According to their election literature the teachers in this district are being paid less than those in neighboring districts. Now, I'm all for paying teachers the money that they deserve. However, there's a big issue over in the Dallas school district where about 650 teachers might be laid off soon. I thought maybe we could hire some of them if we were truly losing teachers because of "low pay".

But I digress...my original point was that your vote DOES count, especially locally. The final tally showed only a 9 vote difference! (Unfortunately my taxes are increasing next year.) In another local school district they defeated a proposed tax increase by only 4 votes. So keep this in mind when you are choosing whether or not to vote next month. Even if you choose not to vote for president you should be sure to see what other issues will be on your local ballot (your congressional representative will be on there for sure). The only way your vote doesn't count is if you don't vote at all.