My Level of Awareness
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." – Albert Einstein
Revocation

I hereby revoke my right to bitch until the next election.  About politics anyway.  I have shirked my civic duty.  I did not vote yesterday. 

This is only the second time since I was eligible to vote that I have missed an election. The first time I had a good excuse.  I didn’t know when I was moving, so missed the date to get an absentee ballot, but arrived without enough time to get registered to vote in my new state.  I even vote in the little local interim elections – the kind that elect city councilmen and decide on ballot initiatives. 

So, needless to say, I am drowning in civic guilt.  Seriously.

I intended to vote.  I really did.  I even went to my polling place.  What happened was that I made a serious tactical error.  Normally I go and vote in the morning before work.  The lines are reliably short, and even when a hot ballot initiative overturns my expectation, my work time is flexible enough that nobody dies if I show up late.

I didn’t do that this time.  I actually had to be at my office an hour earlier than normal to meet a client deadline.  As a contract organization, these things make or break businesses, so I wasn’t taking any chances.  No problem – there’s the lunch hour.  Well, except I had the double whammy of living 20 miles from my polling place AND having a doctor’s appointment that it took me over a month to schedule that I was NOT going to miss.

All right then.  The polls are open until 7:30 in Arkansas.  I can get off early, and go after work, right?  Right.  Good plan.  Came in early.  Leave early.  I can do it.  I can go home at 4:30, vote, and get to my party in Conway by 6:30.

Hah.  In retrospect, what WAS I thinking?

We got to the polling place shortly before 5:30, and it was MOBBED.  Packed.  Had to park a block away.  And the line was LONG.  And, since I am unfamiliar with the polling procedures in Lonoke County (having been out of Arkansas for 13 years), I started out in the wrong line and had to be redirected.  When I finally got through the RIGHT line, I was told that it would take me an estimate ONE HOUR before they would have a voting machine free.  At this point, after the day I had (client proposal wrap-up, Dr. visit, conference call, etc., etc.) and with a squirmy toddler in the car, I felt as if my head would explode.

So, I walked out.

Believe me, you cannot flagellate me anymore than I have flagellated myself.

I realize that in some countries people walk hours, stand in line for hours and risk bodily injury and extortion for the privilege of voting.

I realize that my own great-grandmother got the right to vote the same year her first child was born.  It’s strange to think that somebody within my living history was denied that basic civic right.  And was denied it here, in the United States, in the biggest democracy in the history of civilization.

I realize that I reneged on our only mechanism, however flawed, for political self-determination. 

It was not my proudest moment. 

But there it is.

I have to say, though, I am at least relieved with the outcome.  THAT’s some guilt I don’t have to carry around. 

“Madam Speaker” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

November 8th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
2 Responses to “Revocation”
  1. 1
    Cinnkitty Says:

    Hmmm….okay, okay… won’t flog you for it this year. But you have to PROMISE to vote next time. 🙂

    November 9, 2006 @ 7:41 am
  2. 2
    Kat Says:

    I can relate. The hours I’ve been working these past few weeks, I’ve been telling myself to go early vote. But each day, I’d get home very very late, realize I hadn’t voted, then thought “hell, I’ll go tomorrow.”

    I was quite lucky that not only was there no line when I went over to my polling place around 2pm Tuesday — there was no one there except the poll workers and a guy handing out leftover Halloween candy.

    However, I do remember clearly what drove me to early voting in the first place. I had the same polling place over on north Geyer Springs from my first election (the 1991 school board elections) to 2004. Through my years in Russellville and Jonesboro. I’d come down on Election Day every year and go vote. I *did* get an absentee vote in back in 1996, when it became apparent to me that there was no way to work a 16 hour Election Day and day after and still have time to drive the 2:20:00 it’d take to get to Little Rock each direction. But I voted like mad.

    Until 2004. And really, it was a pretty innocent sounding thing. Though I’d moved several times and my family had moved out of the city, I was still going back to the same polling place. That spring, I go to vote in the primary — and find out something I wasn’t aware of. I found out — I was dead. Deader than a can of Spam, according to the rolls. Thank goodness the same three old ladies had been working the polls all those years. They laughed over the whole thing. I’d arrived at 10am and had waited an hour and a half to vote that day and here I was, dead. They set me up with a provisional ballot, and I was good to go.

    It took TWO YEARS to finally convince the Pulaski County Election Commission I wasn’t dead. I’d go and vote in each election, and go through the same steps. Somewhere along the way, I started going to the county courthouse instead of my old precinct.

    Back this past spring, I went for the primaries — and a wonderful young man (okay, he’s probably older than me, but he was good looking with a full head of black hair) pulled me aside after I’d filled out my ballot. He and I talked, and I went over with him to the counter and re-registered to vote. And by God, it worked. Within a week, I had a registration card (and a duplicate!) and I’d discovered the nice guy was the new election commissioner.

    Anyway — yeah, I like the idea of “Madam Speaker,” a lot. I am very glad certain races went the way they went. I had a personal interest in one of the races, since I know the very gracious gentleman who’s in the office. And I was very glad he won. But most of all, I am particularly happy about the strange optimism suddenly flying about. That’s a nice thing.

    November 9, 2006 @ 11:56 am