Stop right there, you!

"You. You! The person who just walked out of the voting booth and didn't cast a vote in every office on the ballot! Get back in there and vote for the rest of those candidates!"

Is this what you will hear on February 2, if you exit the private voting booth and failed to cast a vote in every office?

What if you don't want to vote for someone? Maybe you don't see any candidates worth your vote. Or even worthy the office, in your opinion.

Isn't there already a prompt to alert you if you didn't vote for an office? Why should you be confronted when you push back the curtain and step out? Can you just feel all those beady eyes zeroing in on you? Bingo! Gotcha! Guilty!

It's bad enough that, in Illinois, you must announce which party's ballot you want to vote in the Primary. For years I voted Republican, almost without thinking about it. Shame on me.

I guess I'll blame it on my dad. He said he would always vote for the best man, as long as he was a Republican.

For me, that changed with George Bush and his henchmen. When (who was it? Cheney?) said, "If you're not with us, you're against us", that lost me. Along with the stupid decisions that Dubya made.

So I became an embarrassed Republican and much more selective about just which Republican got my vote.

So be ready with your answer on February 2. When you leave the booth without marking a choice in every office, be ready for the "Hey, you."

What will you say?

"I voted exactly the way I wanted. Now get lost." But remember; be polite. The volunteers working on Election Day didn't make this stupid state law. Our elected representatives in Springfield did.

In the past I have suggested to the Northwest Herald that it include Bill Numbers and Statute numbers in articles. It seems to me that an editor even agreed that that would make sense. Then it would be easy to look up a law and learn which legislators proposed it and which voted for it.

And then we could remember them "in the right way" the next time we see their names on the ballot. Care to read today's NWH editorial? Go to www.nwherald.com/articles/2010/01/04/r_praw5iskrr219lujfrpmhg/index.xml

The article leads off with "County clerks across Illinois are steamed about a new state law that, some say, vilates the sanctity of the secret ballot."

So, where was the outcry by the County Clerks, elected by us, when that legislation was first proposed and when it was winding its way through the hallowed halls in Springfield???