Letter | You must vote - but first you must educate yourself. Here’s how

No excuses - you must educate yourself and vote

As we move deeper into the campaign season, voters are about to be subjected to a prodigious amount of multi-media proclamations from every candidate. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if each candidate had a spending ceiling and when it was reached there could be no more paid advertising?

The dollars required to run for any office, especially a national office, eliminates all but the financially independent, which leaves the voters with only a pool of elites. In this writer’s opinion, the pool is contaminated, but I digress.

It then becomes the voters duty to filter through the glut, consider the source and do some verification before assuming all you see or read is absolute.

These suggestions may assist you in choosing:

1) Decide what is the most important characteristic for the job.

2) Educate yourself about the candidates.

3) Is the candidate a leader?

4) Decide what issues are important to you and research each candidate’s position on those issues.

5) Discuss the candidates with someone whose opinion you value.

The 2016 election maybe our last chance to once again become the respected world leader we must be to survive as ISIS and Al Qaeda are determined to eradicate all Americans.

It is critical that we pick a leader of solid character with essential skills to handle the situation in which we now find ourselves as a nation.

Please, for our children’s sake, take the time to educate yourself and then vote your conscience.

Apathy and indifference are not options - you must vote!

This story was originally published August 18, 2015 at 7:36 AM with the headline "Letter | You must vote - but first you must educate yourself. Here’s how."