As Political as I'll get...

We voted.  By we, I mean, me, Jack and my mom.

Yes, I know it's not November 3rd.
By voted I mean we voted by mail - sort of.

Most of my family and friends know that one of my biggest soap boxes is that I feel very strongly that voting is not something that needs to be incredibly convenient for us.  The people who secured this privilege, and those that have continued to safeguard it, had no convenience in providing and defending this for us.  Therefore, it should not be so easy for us.  It should never be something that we can do on our couches, or in our jammies, when it fits our schedule. We need to always make an effort.  For those of us who can, we need to always get off our couches and go to the polls.  Every election day.  Not just the big one every 4 years.  

I realize there are many people who cannot get out and vote in person.  For them, there are ways to vote.  We who can, perhaps, need to offer whatever services we can provide to those who cannot.  Drive them, get them to a facility to vote early or find out how to provide them with an absentee ballot.  And, yes, I believe mail has always been an option.

So if this is my soapbox, why did we vote by mail this time?

First of all, my mom, because of her age and because of the pandemic was always planning to vote by mail.  I agreed, that was best for her.  But, why Jack and I?  Well, a couple of months ago, when the option to apply for a mail ballot was presented to us, a couple of things happened.  First, we live in a small community and we have a good County Clerk, who's office is in charge of elections.  He did a video on Facebook explaining the procedures for the voting by mail option in our county.  One of the things he explained was that once we got our ballot by mail, we had more options than just returning it by mail.  He would provide secure drop off options within the county and would actually be stationed for one evening in each town during October for ballot drop offs for those who cannot get to Carlinville, the County Seat.  We could also hand carry our completed ballots to his office.  We felt fairly comfortable with that process as I could hand carry all 3 of our ballots into the Courthouse.

The second thing, and probably the real reason we decided to vote by mail was this.  Around the time we were to decide if we wanted to apply for a mail ballot, Jack and I had a few friends who found themselves in a quarantine situation.  Fortunately, all tested negative.  But we realized we could just as easily find ourselves in that situation at any time.  And, what if, that happened just a few days before the election.  What if we would be quarantined and not able to go to the polls?   We cherish this honor and privilege and this election is too important for us to miss that opportunity. 
So, in this very bizarre year, we voted.  By mail.  Sort of.
Tuesday, I took all 3 of our sealed ballots into the Courthouse to the County Clerk office. 
My mom and Jack both had to fill out the back of the outer envelope authorizing me to carry in their ballots.  I, too, had to sign the back of their envelopes.  I handed them to the lady at the County Clerk office and she noticed mine just had my name and no authorization for another party to return it.  "This one is yours?", she asked.  "Yes."   Then she glanced at the back of the others and said, "Okay, thank you."  She did not look at them long enough or close enough to verify that all was filled out correctly.  She did not ask for an ID to make sure I really was the authorized party.  Yes, this is a small town, but no... I had no idea who she was and she didn't know me.
So...we should pray.  All any of us can really do at this point is put our faith in God that His will be done in this election.
Please do both.  Vote and pray.