A really big election is coming up. I have thought about writing an endless diatribe on the last eight years, He Who Must Not Be Named and his doctrine of preemptive strikes, violations of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments, the "Patriotic Act,"the double speak of the Clear Skies, Healthy Forest, and the Help America Vote Act. But you have probably read all about it and would support the only rational candidate for President, Barack Obama. Instead I thought I would recount (no pun intended) a little story about how democracy works when you have every reason to doubt that it will. This is the story of voting in a school board election held last December.
Last December here in Oklahoma we had a major ice storm , and the power was out for 750,000 households including my own for many long dark days. Trees and tree limbs had snapped like kindling and just getting around was very difficult.
On the day after the outage, my town held an election that determined some school bond issues. The little school across the street from my house would benefit from a “yes” vote with new doors, improved drainage, a new air conditioner and a few other capital improvements. I love watching the kids at this school. I like to see who is learning to line up correctly, who is bullying and who is getting bullied, whose parents are having trouble getting their child to school by the 8 o’clock bell, and whose papers end up in my front yard at the end of the day. I believe in public education in a deep Jeffersonian sense: the future of our democracy rests on the foundation of a broadly and well-educated electorate. I like to think I do my part to facilitate that by paying taxes that benefit schools. I back that up with my vote on school bond issues.
Election day dawned with a determined election board but one that was crippled by lack of power. There was no electricity at the courthouse and so no way to electronically count ballots. Many polling places also lacked lights and the electronic counting apparatus on each ballot box. The school bond issues required a 60% majority to pass. I knew the stalwart naysayers would get to the polls but would enough of the defenders of our civic virtue? It would take a determined electorate to get to the polls today, folks who were willing to take a few minutes away from the urgency of the outage recovery and traverse the debris in order to cast a ballot.
Nothing inspires me more than voting. I love to vote; I love to wear the little sticker, “I voted today.” My love of voting came from my mother who sought and was elected to public office in the early 1950s. Whether I was an integral part of her campaign or not I can’t tell you, but I walked the neighborhoods, or I rode my shiny green two wheeler and passed out her campaign paraphernalia. When she won, I felt I had a part even though I was years away from being able to cast a ballot myself.
Election day dawned dark and still treacherously icy. I ventured out around noon , trying hard to avoid an icy fall on my slow half-block walk to my polling place (oh my God she broke her hip on the way to VOTE!). There I saw the reassuring sign "Vote Here." I opened the door to find our poll keepers holding vigil for our democracy, huddled under blankets and coats with only a few candles to light the big registration books. These ladies were like freedom's beacons and they were happy to see a voter! One of these lively ladies pulled my ballot, took one of the candles and escorted me to my little privacy booth, leaving the candle so I could see where to mark my YES. Holding the candle close to the ballot, I made quick work of the few questions and returned it to the poll keepers. I asked how the votes would be counted and indeed my vote was to be counted by hand in the chilly dark little polling place. I got my sticker and wore it for days.
Not too many people ventured out to the polls that day but enough. After a long hand count the election board determined that the bond issues all passed. Hurray for our republic and its democracy. We live in a great little town, lights on or off.
On November 4, please vote, be a beacon. It is just so important. (Yes We Can!)
