Duty

My husband and I voted this week in our state’s primary elections. I would like to be able to say that we did so out of a deep seated civic conviction and a careful researching of the candidates. Not so much this time. Although we are firm believers in the privilege of voting and rarely miss an opportunity to do so, for a number of reasons we were ready to pass on this round of elections.

Reason #1: Who do we vote for? We had a very busy spring and we were out of town for the week preceding the election, thus, we had not kept up with the candidates and had missed the last minute ads and campaign push.

Reason #2: Where is the sample ballot? A quick perusing of the newspapers upon our return from our vacation resulted in the loss of our usual source of a sample ballot. An internet search resulted in a maze of voter ID information that quickly eroded my civic fortitude.

Reason #3: Is the primary election really that important? The races seemed a little lackluster this round so we started leaning toward a no show for us.

Despite our declarations of “not voting this time”, I must confess we were both experiencing a niggling that just wouldn’t go away throughout the day. As we sat down to dinner, we stated again that it just wouldn’t be right to vote when we were both so ill prepared. And then it all changed.

We were watching our local news while eating our dinner and the reporter was salivating over the early poll results. As they scrolled across the screen, I saw the name of a candidate that I knew and disliked intensely as a state representative. My husband and I looked at each other, looked at the clock, looked at our dinner and instantly agreed, “It’s time to vote.”

So we wiped the barbecue sauce off our fingers and headed on down to our polling site. On the way, we quickly  brainstormed what little we knew about the possible candidates and using somewhat dubious methods came up with a plan of attack. We have great neighbors and we also know which neighbor is most politically aligned with us so we decided to use that lawn sign as an endorsement for our district pick. Another candidate was mentioned during a conversation at church a few weeks ago, so that would have to do for our representative pick. All other candidates would be chosen on a wing and a prayer.

With minutes to go before the polls were scheduled to close, we arrived at our polling site. As we were entering, we met an exasperated couple who said, “Hope you are at the right polling site. We are being sent to another location.” Confession time. We have lived at our current address for over fifteen years, but I have never changed it with the voter registration folks. As far as the voting gatekeepers know, we are still living in our first apartment in the city. Updating our address has never popped up on my urgent to do list.

I presented my voter ID information and was handed a ballot, no questions asked. My husband, however, was snagged at the gate. For whatever reason, the gatekeeper caught the mismatch on his ID and voter registration address. Apparently, my husband was not aware of this discrepancy. Oops. Maybe, I should have explained this possible scenario to him before it actually happened. Just as he was getting anxious about the address with an apartment number included and I was trying to clarify the inconsistency, Mr. Funnypants, right behind us in line, starts squawking, “Voter fraud. Voter fraud.”

A hush has now fallen over the meager crowd. Shouting, “Voter fraud,” at a polling site is tantamount to shouting, “Salmonella,” at a potato salad convention. But, God bless the nerves of steel the voting officials are given. Our gatekeeper looked up from her tome of sanctioned names and clearly stated, “If your name is in the book. You can vote.” Crisis averted.

As we left the polling site, we high fived ourselves for getting out to vote. We also added two more items to our to do lists:

Change our voting address and do a little more than read a lawn sign for the next round of elections.