Tomorrow morning I’ll rise around 4:00am, drag myself into the shower, shave, dress, and shovel a few bits down my gullet, then leave the house at 4:45 to arrive at the polling place just a few blocks north of our house. I’ll need to be there early because I have the key to the supply cabinet.
I’ll work a marathon 16 hours, in excruciating dentist-drilling pain for practically all of it (due to my peculiar circumstances). Following the advice given to me by the nuns who taught me in elementary school, I’ll offer it up. I’ll probably give the same spiel explaining the procedure for voting, perhaps, 200 times over the course of the day.
Reports of heavy early voting suggest that, since our polling place always has a good turnout, that our workload may actually be lighter than expected (once they’ve voted in early voting they won’t be voting tomorrow). I only hope that the desire for change on the part of the electorate doesn’t manifest itself as being rude to us as it did in the 1992 election when voters were abnormally surly.
By my reckoning more than half of the American electorate will be eligible to vote in primaries tomorrow. If you live in one of the states that will be holding primaries, for goodness sake vote. It’s just a few minutes out of your day. Not a great price to pay to execute your responsibilities as a citizen.
I’ll be both busy and without Internet connectivity for the entire day. Expect a report on what happened at our polling place on Wednesday. Earlier if anything exciting happens.
Dave, I appreciate your civic commitment, but as an independent, I don’t feel the obligation or need to vote in either party’s primaries. If the parties wanted people like me, they would make the choice of ballot anonymous. I understand why their rules require otherwise, but so long as those are the rules, I won’t play. Here in Capital City, declarations of party loyalty are believed to have implications for state employment. I’m not interested in working for the state, but I have empathy for people who feel pressure to vote and contribute to whatever party is in power.
But I do wish you the best tomorrow.
Well, get a good night’s sleep tonight, Dave. Sounds like you’ll need it. And thank you for doing this.
Yep. Thanks for your hard work for the sake of the democratic process.