The last time Betsy Jones voted in a presidential election, the year was 1968. She was only 23, soon to travel to Uganda as a Peace Corps volunteer, and wanted to make sure she voted before she left the United States
Local citizens register to vote
WENDY DAHLE
Special to the Herald
MANATEE - The last time Betsy Jones voted in a presidential election, the year was 1968. She was only 23, soon to travel to Uganda as a Peace Corps volunteer, and wanted to make sure she voted before she left the United States.
She remembers voting for then-Vice President and Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey during the peak of the Vietnam War.
Humphrey lost that election to Republican candidate Richard Nixon. Since then, Jones, now in her early 40s and a U.S. citizen who lives abroad, has found it difficult, if not impossible, to vote in U.S. elections.
This year, she hopes that will change. She was one of a few people to take advantage of the voter registration offered at the Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Office on Saturday.
Jones wanted to be sure she registered before voter registration for the upcoming Aug. 31 primary and November general election ends 5 p.m. Monday because on that same day, she travels to England where she has lived for the past 20 years. As she left the supervisor of elections office, Jones was exuberant about ending her 20-year absence from voting.
"I have to vote this time," she said. "It's very important."
This time Jones said she is voting for Democratic candidate John Kerry.
"It is too difficult for her to listen to Bush," said her cousin, Maureen Cassidy who accompanied her to the registration.
