Important social science lesson

I think the past week or so has definitely served as an important lesson: the importance of voting.

Did you cast your vote last fall? I have hopes that you did, but I am also a bit pessimistic.

This mostly has to do with past conversations I've had with a few college students. Some voted, but most didn ' t. And the ones who didn ' t made sure to give me an excuse.

"Too much homework." "Rehearsals." "I'm not registered in Milwaukee County."

Call me harsh, but none of those "good enough" seemed to miss an opportunity to participate in local politics.

I voted. I was actually off from work, so I really didn '' t have an excuse not to. Even if I wasn ' t off from work, I still would have made sure to set aside time to vote. This is what the responsible, informed and active citizens do.

When I ventured to my polling place last fall, I even made sure to take my 1-year-old son with me. My hope is that they will see me being an active citizen and one day will do the same when he is old enough to cast a ballot.

Thinking about non-voters, I'm curious how many of the people at the Capitol demonstrations actually voted in last fall's elections. I'm sure a lot of them did, but because of my pessimism, I highly doubt all of them did.

If they did vote, I can understand their fury. (Full disclosure: I'm a state employee.)

But if there are people in Madison who were registered but didn't vote, they should be furious with themselves. Last fall was their chance to cast a vote and say, "well, Mr. Walker. I don ' t want you to raise my health care contributions to national levels until my salary can compete with the national levels. "

Or they could have voted and said, "Yes, Mr. Walker. Let's stick it to all the unions! Well ... not all of them. "

Tallying up the number of registered voters in Wisconsin in 2010, and subtracting the amount of people who voted for a gubernatorial candidate leaves over 1 million voters.

Over 1 million people did something other than cast a ballot.

I'm curious what was so important that so many people the room away from the polls. Was this, when "American Idol" was holding auditions? Or was this the day when the happy-hour specials were too good to turn down? Or did the good ol ' forgetfulness just set in?

Whatever the excuse, I do hope those registered non-voters have learned an important lesson. All elections matter, and this is why one should make sure to vote.

The coming weeks ' important lesson: protesting.

Some might think it is antiquated, but based on what I saw during the past week, I'm a bit more optimistic.