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Voting rights around the world are an ongoing disappointment. Through research before this posting I refreshed my memory regarding how problematic voting has been historically (and currently). Our own country only granted voting privileges to African American men (not women of ANY color) in 1870 with the 15th Amendment. 1870 isn’t that long ago for the land of the free. In 1920 women were finally allowed to vote after a huge movement and struggle. 1920. That’s only 90 years ago. President Woodrow Wilson wasn’t too keen on that amendment, but Congress was so we have the 19th Amendment. 1920. How old are you? That just doesn’t seem that long ago to me.
In addition to voting rights still evolving we have voting fraud in many parts of the world. We have armed men standing outside polling places forcing people to vote for a particular “candidate” and their ballots are reviewed to make sure they did. We also have armed men standing outside polling stations keeping people from going inside! It’s 2010. How can that be? And women are excluded in many places from voting at all. Here’s a link on our struggle in the U.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States
With all that said, the concept of voting is hard. And it seems to be getting harder. I have never missed any election in my entire life. In the beginning it seemed so clear and simple. I didn’t spend too much time looking things over and studying the people and issues. Now I spend hours on it and when I finally vote there is usually hair pulling and lots of coffee. Sometimes wine. When did that happen? (Not the wine, the stress about voting.)
Partly it’s because I’m older and wiser. I may have voted carelessly in my youth. I understood the big issues and the big people but I don't recall delving into all of it quite the way I do now, especially local issues and propositions and measures. I’m driven now and I’ve made major changes in how I vote and how I prepare to vote. For one thing, I’ve dumped going to the polling places and I’ve been voting via the U.S. Mail with absentee ballots for many years.
I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to vote. Way back then we had to be 21. To me it was truly when I became an adult. I could vote! The very first time I voted I lived in San Francisco. I got up on the morning of the my first vote and left a little early to arrive at the polling place when it opened to avoid being too late to work. I told my supervisor I was voting for the first time the next morning and he was thrilled and told me to take my time. Voting does that to people. It’s so incredibly special and so, well, American (except before 1870 and 1920).
So I skipped my leisurely morning coffee and walked over to my polling station. It wasn’t far and in fact was on the bus line I needed to continue on to work after voting. When I arrived there was a riot. Not a riot with guns and people running and screaming but a large confused and agitated bunch of people standing in front of a locked garage door. I joined the line and soon learned that the people responsible for opening the garage for voting were not there yet. We didn’t have cell phones in those days so we were all stuck wondering what in the world was going on. Some people knocked on the door of the home and no one answered. I waited 30 minutes then left and decided I’d vote after work.
When I got to work my supervisor was very excited and wanted to know how it went. He was wearing a button that stated in red, white, and blue “I voted! Did you?” He glanced at my chest (looking for the button) but I explained the problem and how disappointed I was. He immediately marched to his office and made several phone calls and shot questions at me and then asked for my address and after a few minutes he came out of his office with a piece of paper and my new polling location. Though volunteers were assigned to the closed location that morning they never showed up. Never. In fact, though I thought I’d be going there after work I was indeed directed to another location because—the poll volunteers never showed up. To this day I wonder how many people didn’t vote that day because of that failed location. My boss tracked down my new location. Did others have supervisors that did that? Polling location mishaps are more common than we like to think. Each election thousands of people are not able to vote for a variety of bizarre reasons. Some reasons are questionable.
After work I had to take a different bus, not as close to my apartment as the first location, and found the new polling place. I stood in line then found myself standing in front of three volunteers. After a painfully long period of time they determined I wasn’t on their list though I explained that fact to them when I arrived. Remember: no computers, no cell phones. Of course I wasn’t on their list. This wasn’t my official polling place! I was on the verge of becoming hysterical when a man approached the check in table and took me aside and we went to a small desk in the house (in the laundry room) where he made a phone call and found me. [Note: recently child molesters were discovered to be living at a few polling places in the Bay Area. Some voters checked the list of convicted molesters and found polling places housing these people. Those locations were then broadcast on the news. Bet that didn’t help voter turnout.] By this time many from my morning riot line had arrived and this poor man must have spent the rest of the evening checking them all in by phone in the laundry room. Very sophisticated voting procedure. The United States of America voting via laundry room authority. I wonder how many didn’t make the cut? Happily, I was allowed to vote and I did. Well, I wasn’t “happy” but it was done. I didn’t get a button that said “I voted! Did you?”
Prior to arriving at both polling places I had a list of people and issues written on a piece of paper clutched in my 21-year-old hand. As I waited for my turn, which took a very long time, I realized I was one of the few voters with a list. Not a single person seemed to have a list of options to take inside their booth. I was in and out in no time. As I put my ballot in a box the volunteer standing there asked “Are you sure you read the entire ballot? It didn’t take you very long.” A gentle scolding for a newbie. I showed him my handwritten list and he shielded his eyes.
Over the years I experienced similar situations but none quite that bad. Many had horrendously long lines with “volunteers” who were less than efficient. Many times I watched voters leave the line to pick up kids or husbands or wives or whatever and wondered if they ever came back to vote. Few brought their sample ballots or notes with them. In addition to that, new voting methods were introduced frequently, which propelled voters into frenzy. Let’s not forget the hanging chads. I read about that again while preparing this post and ended up laughing hysterically. It wasn’t funny. I was truly hysterical.
Shortly after the hanging chad fiasco my son and I came to a miraculous conclusion. Why couldn’t we vote from home on our computers? For many years I’ve been voting via the absentee method but why isn’t there a system for voting from home on our computers? We can pay our income taxes that way. We can pay everything that way. I signed up for Social Security and Medicare online. Certainly no more private or secret than voting. When we shop at a department store our item is input by our sales associate and it immediately inventories the item by numbers and colors and stocked items and the store knows the minute they need to order more of that item and my tax is charged and my credit card accepted and off I go. If I buy 30 items (say 15 candidates and 15 propositions) it’s all taken care of in a matter of a few minutes, possibly fewer than five. Why can’t voting be that way? It can and I believe there are sinister reasons that it isn’t being done. Or incompetent reasons. Either way it’s a mess. And why is voting so wildly different from location to location throughout the country? My computer can run my house and a small business and an airport but I can’t vote online?
I know I’ve said before during the 86 blogs I’ve posted that I’m not a conspiracy theorist but really, why does voting have to be so hard? My vet sends me lab results my dogs online .I get reports from my gynecologist online. That’s a lot more private than voting for my local mayor. And if privacy isn’t the issue, which the “powers that be” claim is a valid reason, then fraud must certainly be out there. Those same “powers that be” are worried about fraud. Guess what? We already have plenty of fraud in voting. Some deliberate and some due to incompetence. Lots of incompetence. [Though the absentee ballot is my preferred method I have some issues with the little packet. It’s insanely “busy” and easy to destroy by accident. A little rip here, a small tear there--and it becomes garbage.] For the folks without computers they could use a family member’s computer or vote at a voting center with volunteers---to assist them. My 85-year-old mother would prefer voting online because she doesn’t get out anymore but is computerized!
So the above diatribe is why I chose long ago to vote via absentee. I’m a permanent absentee voter. I have some acquaintances who enjoy going to their neighborhood polling place. I never once found that an enjoyable experience. Not once. I took both kids to vote when they first voted and we had the same poor experience getting through the line and waiting and waiting and waiting. Perhaps it’s because I mostly vote in urban settings. Maybe if I voted in Yreka it would be a more pleasant experience. (Small town in California.)
All that aside, the problem I have with voting now is I don't like most of the candidates and I don’t trust the issues. So though I’ve resolved polling place nightmares I now face the biggest problem of all: who’s telling the truth? That’s a lot worse than a hanging chad. Our politicians and the people who propose the propositions and measures are not to be trusted. Perhaps they never have been but today I don't believe any of them. So I spend hours and hours and hours and hours ferreting out the truth and the records of the candidates and then I feel like taking my entire ballot and putting it through the shredder. But I won’t and I can’t. I still believe those who fought for my right to vote deserve my respect even if our politicians don’t. So I vote. And it’s hard and it’s painful.
But like changing my polling place options I have now changed my ballot options. I no longer vote for the lesser of two or three evils. If I don't like any of the candidates after my research I do not vote for any of them. I always vote for the measures and propositions even though I get migraines after reading the materials and trying to figure out who’s lying. I still vote for the measures because I want to make sure whoever needs the money, if I believe them, gets it. If I don't like them, I vote against the prop or measure. With candidates it’s so much harder. If we research each candidate it is entirely possible to end up not liking any of them.
Some family and friends have told me I’m wasting my vote by not selecting the least objectionable candidate. I can just see that button: “I voted for the least objectionable candidate! Did you?” Back in May I posted a blog entitled Voting for Dollars. In it I discussed my dislike of the vile advertising that our politicians are allowed to spit at us for millions of dollars. Because I’m 65 I’ve watched it get worse and worse with every election, right down to local elections. There are countless reports on the evening news that depict awful commercials from other parts of the country that are deemed funny or outrageous or even scandalous. Some are absolutely untrue and sometimes the campaigns are sued but the cat is already out of the bag.
I persuaded readers not to vote based on the commercials but rather to read about everything instead. There’s so much information on all these people and the issues that it’s quite easy to find the right vote for each person. Voting for commercials is stupid. We can’t be stupid and we don't have to vote for anyone or anything if we don't want to. But we do have to vote. Especially women. Our sisters of long ago fought hard for us and we must honor them by voting. Even if it makes us sick to our stomachs.
We don't get buttons if we vote absentee. Maybe it’s for the best. How about “I voted but my heart wasn’t in it. Did you?” Or “I voted but only for one proposition. Did you?” Or “I voted only because my foresisters fought so hard for me to vote that I feel guilty if I don't. Did you?” They don't make big enough buttons.
www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com
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