I voted by mail the other day. Got the ballot in my mailbox, filled it out right away. Within the hour it was on its way. And the big surprise to me was how exciting it was.
Admittedly, my experience of voting has been positive, even when the outcomes have not gone the way I hoped. It’s hard to write about voting easily knowing that is still not a right that every eligible citizen can count on. I am fortunate to have never had my access to this right impaired or denied. But I have lived in the country that resulted from elections in which, for many, that could not be said, and I have tried to help ensure that everyone’s voice is heard.
But this year for me and so many others, voting is different. (Well, what isn’t different this year?) I wasn’t sure what voting by mail would feel like.
I’m a person who has never missed an election. Not a mid-term, not a primary. Certainly not a presidential. I relish it, every bit, even the long lines. Another caveat: a long line where I have voted is not the same as a long line in neighborhoods where there are those who want to discourage voting. I know I’m lucky. I love the Norman Rockwell-ness of the moment, love thinking about the historic pageant I am part of. I love seeing the supporters standing with their signs the specified distance away and smiling at the ones for my candidates.
I love seeing the some of the same familiar poll workers year after year and even having the same sudden uncertainty—which ward? which district? Worrying that I’m not coloring in the ovals properly. Watching the ballot slide into the machine.
I even love the borderline hokey “I Voted” sticker, and I am not unmindful of its sacredness for those whose right to vote is not an automatic privilege of citizenship.
So how would it feel to do it all by mail? To mail an absentee ballot (which the current president says is “good’), which is exactly the same thing as a vote-by-mail ballot (which he says is “bad”)? I did vote by absentee ballot once before, but that was because I was going to be away on election day. (I heard from a tour guide in Kakadu National Park in Australia that Clinton had won.)
This time there was no question: I was certainly not going to stand in a line to vote with an uncontrolled virus abroad in the land! When Dr. D. and I got our primary ballots in the mail the other day, we immediately opened them and carefully filled in the oval on the one contested race we were thinking about. But there was another one: register of probate. And here’s where the voting at home option works so well. We had no idea whom to vote for for register of probate, so we did a little online research and cast a more informed vote than we would have in person.
And then Dr. D. and I made it into a little moment. We took our ballots to our corner mailbox and took photos of each other mailing the ballots as our “I Voted” moment. It felt, surprisingly, every bit as momentous as pulling the lever. It felt real, a little scary, a little exhilarating. It felt like democracy. Does that sound as hokey as the stickers? Maybe. Made me feel a little teary, too.