I love voting. It's so satisfying to have a tiny little SAY in what happens. It is so satisfying to fill in those little bubbles and drop the ballot in the box.
Oh, you have to wait in line and pull levers?
Sorry, ya. Not here. We get our ballots in the mail, weeks in advance, and we fill them out wherever we please, with an extensive voter's guide by our side, which also comes in the mail weeks in advance and includes submissions from various groups supporting and opposing the ballot measures. Then we plop them in the mail, if we vote in time, or drop them off at libraries and other locations until 8 pm on election day.
The line for the drive-through official elections office ballot box is always long. I dropped mine off at 6 pm at the library near my house, where there was a constant stream of people in and out of the building, carrying ballots in their hand as they went in, empty-handed as they came out.
The beauty of this method is that everyone who wants to vote can vote, as long as you registered at the right address. None of that nonsense about closed polling stations and turning people away and keeping black people from voting.
A friend and I were discussing earlier today how it is a sad, sad state of affairs when one party pins its election hopes on people not voting. You have to have something that draws people, not just a goal of keeping some of them down.
No comments:
Post a Comment