A Creative Day in the USA

Tomorrow, there will take place a major interactive performance craft project conducted in this country of ours, the United States of America. Every citizen (*every citizen!* Its hasn't been that way for very long, folks) gets to participate by adding their piece to a humongous collective compendium of citizen preferences. They call these pieces "votes." And whoever gets the most votes gets put into office to make mighty important decisions on our behalf.

Now, many of us are saying, yeah but the votes don't count, the machines are rigged, etc. Well, here's the thing: why do you think those accused of rigging the machines don't deny it?? Because they know these doubts are helping to discourage the voters who would otherwise vote against them.They don't want those voters coming to the polls, so they allow the conspiracy theories to run rampant.

But here's another question for you: if the votes are already rigged, then why are candidates and political parties collectively spending so many BILLIONS of dollars trying to influence voters? BECAUSE YOUR VOTE ACTUALLY DOES COUNT. Go figure.

Now, as if it isn't cool enough that we get to vote in this country, here's an enticement to sweeten the deal: Take your camera to your polling place, take some photos, and post them on the website of the Polling Place Photo Project (that I read about today on SuperNaturale's blog). This project is "a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that seeks to empower citizens to capture, post and share photographs of democracy in action. By documenting their local voting experience on November 7, voters can contribute to an archive of photographs that captures the richness and complexity of voting in America." This is a great idea, because some polling places are kind of chaotic, and this project can help to remedy that.

So tomorrow stands to be a very creative day for every citizen of the country! Not only do you get to contribute your part to the building of American democracy, but you also get to engage your inner photo-journalist and post your experience of voting!

If you're already planning to vote, that's great, you ROCK! If you want to take it one step further, bring along a friend who's maybe thinking they weren't gonna bother.

And if you're not sure where your polling place is, click here and enter your zip code to find out.

Be a participant!
Be your bad-ass creative self!
GO OUT AND VOTE!!

Photo of voting in 1945 sourced here

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