Today is, at least in America, election day. Every election that I’ve been able to I have voted. General election, mid-terms, special elections, primary, you name it, I have participated in it.
Now, I will say there are a few that I have missed in the last 30-some years, usually primaries, but I can’t think of more than just a few that I would have missed.
When we had kids they would come with us to the polling place. Getting to take them, to show them, to walk them through the process, I felt that was just as important as the actual voting itself, having our kids understand our democratic process and how to participate in it when eligible.
My home state, Washington, has changed to a mail-in process, doing away with polling places in 2005. I miss the polling booth, the experience and community of it, the tactile functioning of the process of voting.
Laura and I would get booths next to each other and confer, passing our marked up voter’s guide back and forth as if we were cheating together on and open book test in high school. On more than one occasion we were told to keep our voices down.
Now the two of us still confer, but it’s over the dining room table. We still have our marked up voter’s guide, and we usually still involve our children. Things may be different, the process has changed, but I still vote. I don’t enjoy the process as much as I used to, but if this method gets more people to participate in our democracy, then so be it.