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Our ward’s temple date is this Saturday, the same day as our presidential primary. In Kansas, we have to caucus, and there is no way to go to the temple (2 1/2 hours away) in the early afternoon and get back in time to vote. A friend of mine from the ward told the bishop about this, and he responded by saying that members don’t really care about the election anyway. I was floored by this.Then, last Sunday in elder’s quorum, the temple trip was brought up during announcements. I waited until the end of announcements and then raised my hand. I reminded everyone that Saturday was our day to vote for president. One guy made a joke about how he thought it was a week later. There was no other response, and the meeting continued. The bishop was right! Is this political indifference among Mormons common everywhere, especially since there’s no savior (Romney) this year? Perhaps I’m a little biased since I didn’t want to go to the temple anyway?
It sounds like just that area and a calendar scheduling conflict, more than an indifference to voting or the president. But it is good you speak up about it and remind others. They will know you have a valid reason when you don’t go to the temple.
A different bishop may make a different call on that one…because I think some really take serious the civic duty.
I’d have to say that in our area members are not indifferent to voting. I know many are not pleased with the choices, but I think the majority of active members do participate in the electoral process. (I know this because I tend to defer conversations of a political nature and several have tried of late to start them with me. “Say, how ’bout those Mets?” 
😯 We are a weird bunch. Romney crazy, then silent. I think a lot of people are discouraged. Voting seems worthless. From their point of view the temple is more purposeful. Stand tall man and vote. Caucuses count. If anyone gives you guff, tell them Ezra Taft Benson would be proud of you. It is a local thing, ime. Is early voting a possibility in your state? If members had already voted, they wouldn’t care about the conflict. Or it’s just a local thing. Today, I stood in a line for almost 3 hours in order to vote. I had decided to wait instead of early-voting. I won’t be doing this again. Yuck.
I did the early voting as I hate lines big time. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
No early voting here, but I live in a rural enough area that there aren’t lines. Once I held a calling where they asked me to book the temple trips for our ward. It was like signing up for a college course, you had to call the temple the very second they declared open season for setting the new schedule. If you called a few weeks after the time when they started taking requests you had to settle for what was left over. This was how it was done a few years ago, it may have changed or it may depend on the temple president? Anyway, you took what you could get. You’d only notice a week or two before the ward’s scheduled time that “Oops, I signed up for Labor Day weekend and no one is going to be in town.”
dtrom34 wrote:Perhaps I’m a little biased since I didn’t want to go to the temple anyway?
My opinion, the temple is open more days than the number of days the polls are open. That factors into my prioritization.
Interest in voting will vary across membership. I personally didn’t care much about actually voitng because I wasn’t a registered voter/citizen, for many years. There was little I could do but watch it. Now I care about it because I can actually vote. Still, I think the message the Ward is sending is bad. We are encouraged to vote and be good citizens. So, to schedule a temple trip on the same day sends a bad message about the importance of voting.
SilentDawning wrote:Still, I think the message the Ward is sending is bad. We are encouraged to vote and be good citizens.
Yes, that was my thought exactly. I was expecting to hear at least something along the lines of, “This was the only date we could get so prayerfully decide if you should do your civic duty or attend the temple”, but there was not mention at all of the election.
amateurparent wrote:Is early voting a possibility in your state?
No I don’t believe there’s any way to vote early with a caucus. I did a little research, but I found no mention of early voting.
DarkJedi wrote:I guess I would have expected more in the heartland.
Right!?
Thanks for the replies everyone. I was curious if other wards were as apathetic about the election as mine, and it’s good to hear that they are not.
https://ldsmag.com/first-presidency-letter-and-instructions-for-participation-in-utah-caucus-meetings/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://ldsmag.com/first-presidency-letter-and-instructions-for-participation-in-utah-caucus-meetings/ Selection:
Quote:Our communities and our state are best served when Utah citizens fully engage in the political process through caucus meetings, primaries, and other political mechanisms. We are concerned that citizen participation rates in Utah are among the lowest in the nation, and we urge greater involvement by members of the Church in the 2016 election cycle.
What’s good for the goose.
Thanks for that article Nibbler. Quick update:My wife and I took our 2 and 5 year old to the caucus. I met up with my boss and a few other co-workers, which made the experience better since we were stuck in a middle school gym with 1800 people for 3 hours. I ran into the bishop of the ward we share buildings with and he was wearing a Hillary Clinton sticker
🙂 . However, there was nobody from my ward there. Overall though, I’m glad we were able to do it.
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