There should be little debate this year over the importance of the ballot.

"I don't care which candidate you vote for, just get out there and vote."

I've always gotten a kick out of people saying that — more emphatically this year — as Election Day nears. In most cases, they know very well for whom they think you should vote. They're just not saying it because they aren't real sure for whom you want to vote and they don't want to get into any long arguments in the middle of a store or the office or, Lord forbid, in your home, where, if the conversation gets too heated, you might take away their coffeecake.

So, what they really are saying likely is more biased in their head than what is coming from their mouths.

"I don't care (although you certainly should) which candidate (the good one or the idiot) you vote for, just get out there and vote (for the only reasonable choice, the person I'm voting for because the other one is a jerk and really stupid, probably crooked — a liar for sure)."

That's sort of how the democratic process works these days. Most of us have firm beliefs concerning candidates and issues, but, for the sake of relationships, we try not talk about them with friends and loved ones. We just shake our heads after parting.

As this year's election approaches, America has become one giant, tense Thanksgiving dinner. Please don't offend any aunts or uncles or siblings as you move toward the ballot box.

Grew Up Political

I am well-acquainted with this political and interpersonal dilemma. I am a product of non-debate. I grew up caught between divergent world views.

My dad was clearly conservative, which he infrequently expressed in concisely worded statements during mealtime debates for which time didn't seem to be allotted to his offspring for rebuttal. At least I never risked arguing, not until the '60s, when everybody seemed to be shouting at each other and arguments appeared to have become appropriate.

My mom tended toward the liberal side of issues, when she wasn't patting my father's arm and softly advising him to "Settle down ..." Otherwise she mostly expressed her views in silence, or by staring down when my father talked, making sure everyone understood that she wasn't nodding.

My father wasn't fooled by her low-key expression of her political opinions, of course.

"I'm not sure why we vote," he used to tell people, whether they cared to hear it or not. "We just cancel each other out anyway."

Reasons For Voting

Still, he knew very well why they both voted every year, faithfully and patriotically.

That reason is called democracy, and that's something that dad served years overseas during World War II trying to preserve. My mom spent an equal time helping on the home front, hoping that her future husband would be one of the fortunate soldiers and sailors to come back from the fighting.

So, they voted, election after election, taking their children along each time to try to instill in the sons and daughter a passion for voting that made it more than a mere civic duty, while maintaining the thought that casting a ballot was a responsibility that all citizens of the United States should fulfill.

It's a duty they did despite the belief that they would "cancel each other out" in the process.

Which is why, when I tell you to get out and vote, I could claim that it doesn't matter for whom you vote. But, it does, if only because your vote helps preserve the process of bringing people to power in a democracy. And I could insist that I personally don't care which candidates and issues your votes support. But, that matters, too. I've already told you that I care. We all care.

For the sake of our relationship, however, I'm just not going to tell you how to vote. For all my favoritism of candidates or stances on issues, I don't want to argue with you anymore. I just want us all vote, then talk about sports or television stuff, and maybe finish our coffeecake.