Voting makes me feel stupid

There are more than 2 candidates for President? What?!

"What do you mean there are five (or six?) people running for the office of President of the United States? How could I not know this? I mean, how can they call it a presidential debate and not invite all the candidates?!?"

And this was the beginning of my several-hour visit to the Land of Feeling Stupid while I blundered my way through the Oregon voter's pamphlet, trying to decipher titles, platforms, measures and explanatory statements.

You'd think that living in Oregon, what with our vote-by-mail system, voting would be a snap. You'd think that, in order not to vote, you'd have to be a) seriously negligent, b) a missing person, c) mailing address-less, or d) dead. But the truth of it is, I only vote in presidential election years.

Now wait, before you start throwing stones--Ow! Hey! Just hear me out, will you?! As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the reason I don't normally vote is because I take voting as a civic duty very seriously.