Hey, Look At Me, Look At Me, I Voted Today
Election Day is one of my favorite holidays.
The kids are home from school, so my little boys get to stay up late and watch "Monday Night Football" and WWE "Raw." I get to go into work late and eat free pizza. And I always score one of those "I Voted" stickers.
It's interesting walking around the grocery store on Election Day. People voted for somebody, and they're not telling you who. Everybody's part of something bigger. Part of this big, flawed quenching of the thirst for power. And we walk around with our "I Voted" stickers.
Those are a curious accessory to a day such as this. It's as if we've done something for someone. Like we've performed some larger duty akin to serving in the military or giving blood. I can understand a sticker for risking your life in service of your country. I can understand a sticker for giving blood. You let someone stick a needle in your arm and suck out your freakin' blood.
Voting is a right paid for us by the blood of our forefathers. People ceased to be so we could do this every first Tuesday in November. We owe it to them to participate. So it makes me wonder: What would these guys think?Those killed in the Battle of Long Island and tortured death in the Bataan Death March and the like?
What would they think of us walking around with our little stickers, as if we just earned our Cub Scout Bobcat badge? Why do we need a pat on the back for going to our local church or elementary school, being smart enough to bring a driver's license and pressing a few buttons?
And what if you don't have a sticker? That insinuates that you either a.) voted and didn't wear a sticker, b.) voted and wasn't offered a sticker or c.) didn't vote.
There's nothing wrong with consciously deciding not to vote. There's a lot of power in pushing those buttons. It's how wars are fought, how people suffer, how the world is cared for. What is the purpose of someone blindly pushing buttons with no knowledge of what your pushing them for?
Or maybe you do know and maybe the choice between the lesser of two evils isn't a choice you feel you should have to make. Maybe you choose nothing.
My sticker that I'm wearing today says, "I Voted for myself."
I did vote for myself. And my two sons. And my buddy Paul (who called to ask me if I was interested in him writing me in for the State House seat in his district, which would be problematic because I don't live in that district).
I took my 6-year-old son, Asa, to vote with me today. I pulled a chair up to the touchscreen booth and let him stand on it.
"Here's governor." And I told him the guy I was going to vote for. How this guy is a Democrat and this guy is a Republican.
I went through the others.
Lt. Governor. State Treasurer. The Gay Marriage Amendment.
Then, I pushed write-in, and I told Asa I was voting for him for our district's state house seat.
He asked me why. I told him because there was only one person to choose from and that I had no idea who he really was or what he had done. I wasn't against him, but I wasn't for him, either.
There is no button for "None Of The Above." The best you can do is write in someone to make an affirmative statement. Otherwise, it's a statement of nothing.
Asa for State House. Aden for Attorney General. Eric for Secretary of State. Paul for Agriculture Commissioner.
It was a good lesson for Asa. He asked me what would happen if he were to win, and he seemed genuinely worried that he might.
I told him about how some people are Democrats and some people are Republicans and how they disagree on how the world should be run. I told him that they make voting secret so that we can never be in trouble with anybody for voting for whom we want to.
And I told him you vote only if you know what you're voting for.
Somehow, as strange as it sounds, I don't think I wronged our forefathers too much.
And I wore my sticker.
9 comments:
How about "I voted but gave my sticker to my kid because he pushed the NEXT button for me"?
Wait, is that illegal? Should I not spread that around? I know he's not old enough to vote but it was just the NEXT button, for crying out loud. Quit judging me!
you vote by pushing buttons?
i don't trust computers for things like that.
on the other hand, our secret british vote involves going to the polling station with our secret polling card, which has a 'secret number' on it.
we hand in the card, the look through a book full of voting slips in, all with numbers on, but no names, and give us the slip with our 'secret' number on.
we mark an x where we want, although this i best next to a candidate's name, and pop our anonymous numbered paper into the box.
there is no secret voting in britain. it's a myth. which is why i always tear off my secret number from the slip, as should all brit voters.
"It was a good lesson for Asa. He asked me what would happen if he were to win, and he seemed genuinely worried that he might." *Snort* That's priceless. Can you imagine what a kid would do with that kind of power? ;)
"I told him about how some people are Democrats and some people are Republicans and how they disagree on how the world should be run. I told him that they make voting secret so that we can never be in trouble with anybody for voting for whom we want to."
Good lesson. At the risk of sounding like a total dork, everytime I vote I get all these chills and I almost get teary eyed because I feel like I'm doing something so incredibly important and I just feel so thankful that I even get to have a say. None of my choices won though...ah well. At least I got to say how I felt.
I've often considered writing myself in for a seat or two, or all of them. Seriously, just voting for myself for every single statewide seat. That would be kinda fun.
I never vote for unopposed people. I figure they have it too easy to get my vote.
Lowest voter turn-out in North Carolina's history. 31%.
I'm one of the apathetic majority.
cindy ... shit, i can't believe i didn't let him push the vote now button. that was the best possible thing i could have had him do.
dan ... i don't trust it either. there's no trace of your vote. that's scary.
tink ... i know what he'd do ... two chicks at one time. no wait, that's lawrence. no, he'd have mandatory playstation 3's for every citizen.
belle ... well, seeing as how you live in texas, we know you can't be a republican if all your people lost. whatever emotion you feel about voting i think is important because people have suffered for your right. at this stage of my life, though, i'm fairly disillusioned with politics and power in general.
jay ... i'll vote for someone who's unopposed, but only if i know something about them. which oftentimes isn't the case because they don't spend any money to let you know who they are. and if they have to spend money for that, then that's not a good sign.
rusty ... that's interesting that turnout was so low. the election in general had a higher-than-expected turnout nationwide.
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Hey, my electronic voting machine had a paper printout thing on the side, so after you voted it would print right there for you to review and it saved the printouts. Maybe they realized Diebold needed a little supervision.
that's interesting. why in the world would they do things so different in so many different places with something as important as this?
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