I’m getting ready to vote in Florida. I’ve got my ballot marked, and ready to place it entirely in it’s Secret Sleeve, which will then go into the Special Envelope. It arrived last week, and is part of my wife and I’s setting up so that we get our ballots mailed to us until 2022. That will cover us until the 2022 midterms, which I suspect are going to be even more energetic and important than the 2018 midterms.

I would have dropped it off today at a local early voting location, but Florida shortened the early voting time from three weeks to two weeks, just one of many voter suppression acts, both big and small. My wife and I can’t drop our votes off until Monday, 19 October, at the earliest.

Why drop it off? Why not mail it back? Because the Postal Service is being actively sabotaged by Trump and his minions to make vote by mail as difficult as possible. One of the side effects of this is the slowdown in the receipt of medications and other important mail. Dropping off our completed votes is a hybrid solution to ease the burden on the post office. So our process is to ask for the ballot early enough so it comes as early in the voting cycle as possible, then fill it out as soon as possible after it’s received, finally dropping it off by hand at a local early voting station which happens to be located just five minutes from where I live. We did this for the local primary and it worked out just fine.

Also, I voted a straight Democratic ticket where I could. There are a number of amendments on this ballot which required careful research before I voted one way or another.

I’m not taking anything for granted any longer. I’m not believing the polls, even if they say Biden is ahead by double digits everywhere. I’m focused on voting for Biden and all Democrats, and in getting others motivated to at least vote, and hopefully, to persuade them to vote Biden and Democrat in general.

I’m “locked and loaded” with the most powerful weapon against Trump, a vote against him and all his minions. I can’t wait to turn it in.