‘You asked for it’

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Well, we citizens of Illinois, and the residents of Bureau County especially, have certainly done ourselves proud (NOT) with our voter turnout during this latest primary election. What a pathetic example we’ve set for the rest of this once great nation! A chance to make our collective voices heard at the local, state and federal levels and most of us willingly abdicated our right and responsibility. It is a sad, sad situation when people just don’t care.

Reportedly, we achieved a 25 percent voter turnout in Illinois, tying the record lows, and a record-breaking low of 17 percent for Bureau County — this with absentee ballot and early voting available, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. voting hours at convenient locations on Election Day, plus unlimited access to candidate information. And yet, most of us are not willing to expend the little time and energy required to exercise that freedom of choice that so many people have died, and are willing to die for. How are we to have any confidence we have elected competent representatives when we do such a dismal job in selecting them?

Because informed voting is the very least we can do as citizens, is there any wonder we, as a once great nation, are in the shape we find ourselves? We apparently have a huge portion of the population that really doesn’t want to be American, they just want to live here.

We deserve who and what we do, or in this case don’t, vote for. As many of our parents said to us as children, when we were about to be rebuked, “You asked for it.”

Rich Miller

Princeton