My name is Barbie and I approved this message...

Okay before I get to the good stuff, a couple of 2008 Election Day wishful thoughts... or should I get a petition going and maybe get them on the next ballot as initiatives, or would they be propositions, or referendums? Prepositions? Amendments?

Anyway...

1. If a voter votes by absentee ballot (which I totally do) , said voter (me) should no longer be subjected to nor inundated by political commercials and roadside campaign signs of any kind, effective immediately from the moment their ballot is dropped off. In this hypothetically closer-to-perfect world, if I mail in my ballot two weeks before the actual Election Day, by some miracle of technology my television would no longer televise any political commercials. Interviews, debates and sound bites could also go away, as far as I'm concerned. If you choose to have signage in your own yard, I am not opposed. But every linear inch of road side would be wiped magically clean between my home and where ever I choose to go. I'm pretty sure this technology already exists but there's no profit in it so it goes the way of (until recently) the electric car and solar panels, as far as marketing and public availability goes.
2. And another thing, there should only be one channel on tv that is permitted to televise political commercials. And yes, I'm aware that this would negate the need for the proposed Proposition #1 described above, but I'm just sayin'. If there were only one channel designated for the marketing of political views, people would be free to spend as much of their precious time viewing these entirely useless electronic forms of human regression and degradation but those of us who could live quite happily without, would be free to do so. Instead of the current 'system' of thinly veiled imprisonment and torture that I'm feeling now. Free choice. That can't be a bad thing, right? Choose to subject yourself to the lowest and most common practice of elevating ones self by tearing someone else down. Or not. Up to you.

Today is the best election day I have ever had. And the reason might not be what you think.

I work at a library. It is a very small, personal, intimate library. One of my patrons is a teen mother. Brave, strong, smart, tired Mom is nineteen years old. Amazing, adorable, library loving, genius Daughter is two years old. Mom and I talk often and have really grown to appreciate each other. I look forward to her almost-daily library visits.

When I got to work today, she was in the parking lot by her car. We exchanged smiles and 'hello's. She said she had been to the election polling place that is in the community center building that houses our library branch. She looked crest fallen and said she had gone in thinking she could vote. She didn't know you had to register a head of time. She mistakenly thought she could register there, then vote. Now I have been voting for a few presidential elections, and it was hard to imagine her not knowing this. But she didn't. (And frankly I probably didn't understand such voting details until I started the process, myself.)

She said she felt stupid for not knowing and standing there in that line thinking she could vote today. I felt terrible for her and wanted to walk into the polling place and demand she be allowed to vote. Sensing a certain amount of futility in this fantasy, and wanting to preserve my own right to vote in all future elections, I refrained.

Much, much earlier in the day, before the polls were open in my time zone, in a news report about some of the ballot problems they had last election, I heard the term 'provisional ballot.' I didn't know what this meant at the time but from the context of the news story I surmised that it was a ballot you could use but would not count until your address and such were verified. Thinking this might be the case, I suggested we walk over to the polling place and see what we could find out. There were five people ahead of us. We waited. I held her two year old child in my arms. We watched the voters.

It was the proverbial range. Old, young. Large, small. Dark, light. Bathed and not. There were several people in military uniform. Some that appeared to be health care workers. All reading their voter's pamphlets, marking their ballots. It was very solemn and respectful. Yet at the same time, shiny and energizing. Fresh airy. The woman behind the table we stepped up to, explained (and don't quote me here) that a provisional ballot is for use in the event that your name is not on their voter 'roll.' And she indicated the ream of paper before her with names and addresses of those voters assigned to this polling place. But that you did in fact have to be registered somewhere, but maybe were just not able to get to your own polling place.

It was a sad moment for me, for Mom and for the woman explaining. My sweet, well-intentioned patron would not be allowed to vote today.

We started to walk away, when I turned back. I asked if she could at least register today. An emphatic 'YES' was the answer. The woman retrieved a voter's registration and we left to make room for the people behind us in line. The day could have remained a disappointment for this Mom, but together we decided that we should celebrate this historic Election Day by getting her registered for the next one.

She came into my work room. I played with the darling Daughter while the evolving Mom filled out her registration. She had to run outside for her driver's license. I took her picture filling in the blanks. We walked back over to the polls and they happily took her registration. The woman handled this registration with the same care and respect that she handled the ballots. She made sure Mom had signed in the proper place and said she'd receive her voter's card in the mail, shortly.

We went back to the library and I proclaimed her accomplishment, quite vocally. I literally patted her on the back. "You should be very proud of yourself. Good for you. I'm so proud of you." She hung with me in the back room for a while after, with some questions about today's election and voting in general. I took out my absentee ballot (that I dropped off at the polling place just moments ago...) and showed her what it looked like. What the secrecy envelope looked like. Together we looked through a voter's pamphlet. She wanted to know how soon we would know the election results. I said at the next election, I'd go with her to cast her vote, so she wouldn't feel nervous if she didn't know how it all worked.

"So I'll be a democrat, right?" she asked me, when it was almost time for her to head off to her job at the fast food place down the road, making minimum.

"You can be what ever you want to be," I said. "It's up to you."

She said, in complete sincerity, "I thought you had to be rich to be a republican."

I love this girl. I do. I love that she trusted me enough to ask a question that she might not feel safe asking other people, afraid of looking stupid. I love that she believed I would treat her with respect and courtesy, in her pursuit of information. I love that I got to be with her through her registration experience. I explained in the most non-partisan and empowering manner I could, how she gets to decide to which party she will belong and in fact, she gets to decide if she joins one at all.

It was far and away that best part of my day. Even better than actually voting myself. I loved looking at the whole day through her inexperienced and eager view. I loved telling her with watery eyes, that which ever way the election went today, one of two things was about to happen. Either a black man was about to be elected our nation's president. Or a woman was about to be elected our vice-president. I feel prehistoric. How often do we get to watch an historic moment approach like this? I am living through a moment in time that will be the test question on future middle school exams. I will never forget this year. My mind will quite effectively erase the hard feelings I could hold on to, about all the political double speak and slinging of crap and I will be left with a singular sense of gratitude that I was alive today.

November 4, 2008