Voting

What is the point of allowing a mail-in ballot request to a certain date if the voter won't receive the ballot in time to mail it back?

Now, rather than feeling good about voting today, I'm angry that I don't get to exercise my right to vote.  I'm sad.  I feel like a bad citizen.  I don't really care that I'm not voting for a president, because my vote was going to be about not voting for one man to shift the tide, rather than voting to elect one of them.  It would be easy to say I didn't vote because of that, because I don't feel it's right to elect the lesser of two unpleasant choices, because I don't feel it is.  Electing a president should be about supporting a candidate who represents my hopes and dreams and needs and requirements for my life and country and conscience.  But voting isn't just about which man sits in the oval office, it's also about the issues of my state.  About my schools and the use of my taxes.  It's about civil liberties.  It's about the future as much as the present.  And it's about exercising my voice, because my foremothers fought, body, mind, and soul, to ensure that I had the same right to self-government as my brothers, not even a hundred years ago; because my more-distant forefathers fought, body, mind, and soul, to give generations forward the ability to vote for their own good.

So thank you, to those who voted.  Even if you voted differently than I would have.  Even if you make changes, or don't, that make me angry.  Showing up is important.  I'm sorry I let my life troubles get in the way of joining you.