“The influence over government must be shared among all the people.” Thomas Jefferson
I voted yesterday. It felt great. I used to live in Connecticut, where voting for President felt a touch performative, since the state’s electoral votes have been painted blue since the early 90’s. Now, however, I live in the swing state of Georgia, where voting is taken as seriously as peach cobbler—and peach cobbler is taken very seriously.
Early voting has been open here since Tuesday of last week. The first day attracted 310,000 voters, shattering the previous record of 136,000 set just four years ago.
ADVERTISEMENT
1.4 million people cast their votes in the first week, about 20% of the entire eligible voting population. People here are voting hard.
I suspect the reason for the huge turnout is that folks here understand our state’s potentially determinative role in the presidential contest. Once a deep red state, the state elected two Democratic Senators in recent years and, at least for the moment, the road to the presidency now marches through Georgia like General William Tecumseh Sherman once did. (That might have been an insensitive analogy and I apologize to anybody whose home was burned to the ground during the Civil War.)
My wife, adult son, and I walked to our local polling station from our home in Savannah, figuring that the middle of the afternoon on a Monday was likely to be the quietest part of the week for performing one’s civic obligations. I was surprised to find the place fully staffed and buzzing.
A half dozen poll workers sat behind plexiglass windows to check us in. “You’re Michael Ian Black?” my poll worker asked.
“I am,” I said, prepared to offer an autograph.
“OK,” she said, turning back to her computer monitor. Turns out she wasn’t starstruck, merely reading my name from my license. Apparently, she had no idea that I’m VERY FAMOUS!
“Take a stylus,” she said, indicating a small cup of pens with rubber tops. “You can keep it. They double as a pen.”
Free stuff!
After checking me in, she handed me a green plastic smart card, which had been keyed to my identity. I inserted the smart card to an electronic voting machine, which presented me with a menu of candidates from President down to coroner. Why coroner should be an elected position, I have no idea. After all, dead people don’t vote, except in Illinois.
I used my free stylus/pen to make my selections. The machine asked me to review my choices, which I did: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for President. Dems for pretty much everything else because I am a partisan hack, although I did vote for the Republican candidate for Sheriff because he’s been in the position for 50 years and I feel bad about turning on Joe Biden after his disastrous debate performance so I wanted to make it up to the octogenarians. Also, for the record, I voted James Vernard Flowers for Coroner because his platform is “I love people.”
After I completed my choices, the machine spit out a ballot for me to bring to another machine, which tabulates the counts. The women who were working the tabulating machine were both middle-aged and African-American, and I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I kept my ballot fully visible to them as I inserted it because I did not want them to see a middle-aged white dude and assume I was a Trump voter.
Of course, I have no idea who those women were voting for but I’m playing the odds on this one. It’s embarrassing that I wanted the approval of poll workers, but I am an embarrassing human being.
After the machine swallowed my ballot, the women offered me a sticker. They didn’t have to ask me twice. While I do enjoy participating in the democratic process for its own sake, I would have been disappointed if stickers had not been included. And then I was done. Soup to nuts, the whole process took about ten minutes.
The thing about voting is that, unlike a lot of civic obligations, this one feels pretty good. Better than going to the DMV, for example, or paying your taxes. In a weird way, it almost feels like a reward. Like this is the prize you get for being a citizen. You get to help determine who’s going to break their promises to you! It’s all very exciting.
I’m sort of kidding about the broken promises thing. Although it’s fashionable to bemoan the quality of our political candidates, I’m actually not particularly cynical about the electoral process. I don’t generally hold my nose I vote because, for the most part, I think public servants really do want to serve the public.
Call me a pie-eyed fool, but I honestly believe most of them get into it for the right reasons, and want to do right for their constituents. Of course, I am not including the present Republican candidate for President of the United States among those who run for the right reasons, unless you consider “staying out of jail” to be a good reason.
The truth is, we can’t control who runs for office. We can’t control the dumb shit they say or the policies they support. We can’t control how they conduct themselves while in office. But we can control our vote. We can control how we express our own political will. We can stand and be counted, one voice among millions. Voting is both a right and, in my opinion, an obligation. Particularly when the nation is as divided as we currently find ourselves, voting is a peaceful way of promulgating one’s values in public life: “This is what I believe. This is where I plant my flag.” Voting is our inheritance from America’s founding, an inheritance that has gradually been extended to all of her citizens.
For all of our problems and fissures, we retain the simple act of voting as our first line of defense against that which would destroy us from without and from within. It’s a beautiful act. Plus, the stickers are free.
