Ok, Mr. Sea Lion, I’ll bite. You’ve already chambered your answer, so it’s not worth my or your time for me to do this, but I’ll do it anyway. I will say this, I wish I kept my primary sample voter booklet for this year, it could have helped me going forward. Such is life.

I was born in late 1981, I turned 18 in 1999.

I did not vote in the 2000 Presidential General Election

…because I was politically ignorant. Bush was my governor living in Texas, and while I didn’t really like him, I didn’t have much cause to, nor an understanding of his policies. He helped to take the Amber Alert statewide during his tenure. I lived near Dallas, Texas at the time of Amber Hagerman’s rape and murder (Arlington, TX is close by). She was 9 in 1996 when everything happened, I had just turned 15, and the story was everywhere. Bush implementing the Amber Alert statewide and then nationwide was a 100% good thing that he did, despite all the bullshit otherwise. I only followed what news I saw, and otherwise went about my tumultuous life.

9-11-2001 happened. It was 3 weeks before my 20th birthday. I was on on the phone, on hold, with the office of my probation officer when I heard via the news on that phone line that “America was under attack”. I lived with my grandmother at that time because my mother kicked me out less than 2 years after my step-dad was killed in a drunk driving accident (the world is better without him). I told my grandmother to turn on the TV and we were plastered to that fucker for the next 10+ hours. I continued to watch news and late night talk shows for another 10 years. Soon, at a meeting with my probation officer, I asked him if I could effectively commute my sentence by joining the military and going and shooting some foreigners. That didn’t land. And I was unable to continue paying my probation fees and I ended up with like 80 hours of community service (fuckers coulda started with that).

I did not vote in the 2002 Midterms

I had moved to East Texas, because my grandmother moved away to another part of East Texas. I moved in with a friend and his family. I had trouble finding jobs, dealing with un-diagnosed/-medicated depression. I was nowhere near as suicidal as I had been the 5 years after the passing of my step-dad. His death coincided with my puberty, and that fucked my brain chemistry up, to the point that I still have Persistent and Major Depressive Disorders at 45 years of age. I had a girlfriend prior to moving, and that relationship soured, then ended. I was able to get a couple of jobs, and was making reasonable pay, but then was fired.

I did not vote in the 2004 Presidential General Election

I was still living in East Texas, not really feeling like I was “living” in the first place, just attempting to stay alive despite my inner workings pleading otherwise. I was soon on my way out of living in East Texas, as my friend’s dad was going to be dying soon. His dad basically owned that house, and his extended family were to inherit and then sell it off. In 2005 I was effectively homeless, but a friend of mine and his family were going to let me stay at their place. I had a hard time getting the motivation to try and find work, and applications were denied. They kicked me out on my 24th birthday, mere months after arriving.

I did not vote in the 2006 Midterms

I was just out of a Job Corps program in North Texas. After being kicked out, I basically begged my terrible mother to let me stay with her. (I am no longer in contact with her, over a decade strong). She set up the Job Corps thing, and I went there got job training as a security guard, got out, got a job, and moved out on my own.

In 2008, 9 years after I turned the age of majority, I finally voted in a Presidential General Election, and:

I voted for Barack Obama

I had been watching nighttime talk shows since 9/11 happened, and he was everything that Bush wasn’t. The Iraq war was stupid and pointless, and Obama was eloquent and seemed like just a chill dude. I don’t regret that decision. Under Obama’s first administration, the CFPB was formed via the Dodd-Frank Act. The Affordable Care Act and the “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” were both enacted among many many many others. Are they perfect? No. Because politics, like the bus, doesn’t get you exactly where you wanna go, it gets you nearby. After all the good I heard about Obama,

I did not vote at all in 2012

…because I was living on the streets in a tent, homeless, in Los Angeles. My security job was getting shifted to a new company at the end of 2011 (right around the time of my birthday, the end of the fiscal year), and I was naive enough to think my then employer would have a place for me, and I was wrong (the new company would have kept me on). So I was out of a job, and soon to be out of housing. So I took my remaining vacation days, cashed them out, and when my lease was over, I took a Greyhound for a month to semi-explore the US. $2000 in 2011 wasn’t enough, even with a 1 time bus pass of $550 that took me everywhere.

I did not vote in the 2014 Midterms

Because while I was no longer homeless, I had ONLY just moved in to “permanent” housing at the beginning of September 2014.

I did not vote in the 2016 Presidential General Election

I didn’t like either candidate, because propaganda still had its hold on me, and I wanted everything to burn to the ground. Little did I know I would get my wish.

I did not vote in the 2018 Midterms

I had lost my housing in 2017 because I was arrested due to a drunken tweet that was hoping to receive suicide by cop. I was lucky enough to have an acquaintance get me into a sober living facility, and I was slowly making my way to getting a job and housing. Then that sober living facility evicted everyone in September of 2019. I had a job working at iHeartRadio as a board operator because I had been going to school for media production in my 30s. Then COVID hit.

In the 2020 Presidential Primaries,

I voted for Bernie Sanders

In the 2020 Presidential General Election

I voted for Joe Biden

I also voted for a number of propositions in the Los Angeles area. I peacefully protested in the streets when George Floyd was murdered. While I was locked in a house that had more mice than square footage, I did everything I could to hunker down, save money, and watch the “world” burn as the most incompetent president in modern history ran the country into the ground.

I voted for every fucking Democrat I possibly could in the 2022 midterms

After the clusterfuck of Fuckface 45 and his dismantling of the Obama era global pandemic response teams, and so much other bullshit, I swore not only would I always vote in every election, never again would I potentially be responsible for the election of a Republikkkan through my inaction. I voted all the way down ballot, even voted in my Public Defender from 2017 into a position of Judge of the Superior Court, hope he has a long and successful career.

I voted for Kamala Harris (the most qualified Presidential candidate in modern history) in 2024

Despite again, being homeless and this time living in a homeless shelter. I was more prepared for homelessness this time around, and had a UPS mailbox up and running before I lost my housing. I voted down ballot for all measures possible.

I voted for Nithya Raman for Mayor of Los Angeles

…and only Democrats or Independents in the 2026 Primary. I have my new sample ballot. I will be spending about 3 working days researching each and every item and person to vote on and will be voting on them all.

I don’t regret my votes. I know and understand that genocide and I.C.E. are incipient threats that we have little recourse to handle at this moment, and voting is the very first step that we all have, and should do. I’ve had it rough for a long fucking time, and I gave you the truncated version because they were relevant to my political process. I was in the Jury Pool waiting room yesterday, sleep deprived waiting to see if I was going to be called for a case. I’m not a happy person, and never will be.

But I will always vote to MITIGATE harm to the best of my ability. Voting for Shill Stein isn’t one of em. Write-in candidates during an important election isn’t just fucking reckless, it’s irresponsible. I’m effectively voting for gun reform, while write-in and 3rd party candidate voters are voting to keep guns the way they are without actually saying they’re voting to keep guns the way they are. I’m voting for seatbelts, and airbags, and speed bumps, and crumple zones (to switch to a car metaphor), because they HELP despite the constant fucking bullshit from the car companies who don’t care about your safety.

Fuck third party voters, and those who write-in. I’ll proudly vote for a Democrat whenever I feel that it’s necessary to do so, and especially if they’re the only other VIABLE option. Yes, I’ll vote for fucking Gavin Stupid-Hair-Gel-Fuckhead Newsom if I goddamned have to, to prevent a Republikkkan ever finding office again.