Voting: The Right, Privilege, Responsibility Trifecta

Thanks to the concept of absentee ballots, I have already voted in my 7th Presidential election. Compared to my father, who has been voting since the 1940s, it isn't a long time, but it is my privilege, right, and responsibility.

I remember every election year except my first. I was less than a month old the first time I went to a polling place. In 1964, my mother put me in her 1956 Chevy Belair and drove to the west side of Dewey, Oklahoma where she voted in an Indian Methodist Church. I've no memory of that particular election (though I strongly suspect at that time my parents' votes cancelled each other out), but according to family legend, the precinct supervisor would not allow Mom to carry me with her into the voting booth, so she set me on a table in my jumper seat under the care of an election worker while she cast her ballot.

The next election cycle, "we" voted at the Washington County Fairgrounds and my mother wore the blue wool dress for which she had won a blue ribbon at the fair a few weeks prior. I recall that election because I was allowed to open the curtain after Mom had flipped all the levers for her preferred candidates.

In our family, election night was an exception to bedtime routines, and I am sure I will be watching the incoming results this year and typing bulletins into email for friends unable to watch live coverage. I've long since grown weary of the debates and campaigning and endless advertisements. My phone has rung more in the past week than it has in months and almost every call is an auto-dialed encouragement to vote for a particular candidate. I stopped a young man from putting a bumper sticker on my truck (though it was for my preferred candidate) and I have not answered my door this afternoon when last minute campaign efforts were in my neighborhood. It's time to get this election done.

I'll be watching and waiting with the rest of the country. With the utilization of the Electoral College and the volume of voting it is unlikely the election will hinge on my particular ballot. Nonetheless, my vote is important.

My vote is a privilege citizens of many countries devoid of the democratic system do not enjoy. As with all privileges, it can be taken away, and having known my fair share of folks who have spent some time on the inside of a barred door, one that is missed in the truly rehabilitated.

My vote is a right. As a woman, there has been a time when I would not have been allowed to voice a political opinion by casting a ballot.

More important than the right or privilege, my vote is a responsibility. Partisanship aside, one of my favourite movies is "American President". Michael Douglas' character says at one point:

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight.

It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.

You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free".

You may not hear me singing, but I did cast my vote.

JEF