Primarily Empty

Professor J,

Today is primary/local election day in my area. I'd like to say that I carefully timed my trip to my polling place to avoid the crowd. I knew better. I had no trouble finding a place to park and the small number of voters, equal to the number of poll workers (four) made the space inside the community center feel cavernous. A few things have changed since my first election. The process is streamlined. Of course it also eliminates the community chit chat that used to take place while a wrinkly finger scanned down the page, located your name, confirmed your address and told you how many of your neighbors she'd already seen today. No need for that; in our new age of connectivity, I'd already seen their "I voted" status updates.

On the wall was a list of all the people in our precinct who had early voted. County wide it totaled over 300,000. That's 60% more than in 2008. People love it. Early voting has several benefits in that it goes on for several days, and you can vote an any polling station and not just in your specific precinct. I did it two years ago. I had to stand in a fairly long line that day, in stark contrast to today's experience. I found I didn't really like it.

Something is missing, the feeling of community that standing in line with your neighbors brings on Election Day. Because it allows for a county full of folks to run into polling places all over town you are unlikely to run into anyone you know. There is something reassuring and rewarding about waiting around with the people you see at the grocery or in line at the post office to do your civic duty. I miss standing next to the WWII veterans (so rare now compared to that chilly November when I voted in my first election under their watchful eye) who made it possible for all of us.  I miss the  man or woman in uniform, a silent reminder that all our liberties have been paid for by others.  I miss chatting with the 18 yr. old who is excited to be voting for the first time. I miss the small talk and catching up that takes place, finding out who just had a baby, or who bought the house down the street.  It used to be nice to wait with my fellow voters, engaging in idle conversation and knowing they were going to cancel out my vote, or I theirs, and joking about it. I think it helped. I think it helped to see that the people with different ideas on what's wrong and how to fix it were people that I liked.  They were so very different than the people I see now screaming at each other on cable news.

 The other big change is that Tennessee is among those states now requiring a photo ID in order to vote. (Oh good, another chance to drag out that photo.) In our state this requirement became law over a year ago so people have had lots of time to become informed of the change and there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. Just today, closing arguments were wrapped up in a week long hearing over Pennsylvania's controversial voter ID law. For many low income voters it presents an extra hoop to jump through and it may keep many elderly voters from going to the extra trouble. It kept my mom and mother-in-law from voting today.  I was surprised however to find out how many states have no voter ID requirements. If the valid photo ID seems too strict, the lack of requirement seems too lax to me.

Strict Photo	Photo	Non-Photo	No Voter ID Law

Part of the conversation I overheard while I was bemoaning my choices on the the touch screen, was about how sad the low voter turnout was and the lack of young people showing up at the polls. I wondered about how disillusioned and jaded lots of 18-30 yr. olds would be growing up in our recent political climate. Voter turn out fell off 60% from '08 to '10.  But then presidential elections are sexy in a way that electing members of the school board or voting on a sales tax referendum isn't. I also wonder, as I'm sure you do, how much a lack of adequate history, civics, and economics education has to do with our inability to inspire people to participate.

Whenever I stroll into my polling place I remember a photo I saw in the paper many years ago. It was of a man in some emerging third world democracy, crawling on his stomach and dodging gunfire. He was trying to get to the place where he could cast his vote. I thought of him today when as I was turning in my electronic voter card the woman stuck an "I voted today" sticker on my dress.

"We need the publicity." she said.