I love election day
I voted today and so I get to game my I voted sticker all day lengthy. I may even get a loose cup of espresso at Starbucks this afternoon. You know they're giving unfastened coffee to anybody with a decal today, proper? Anyhow, voting on election day continually offers me a thrill. There's something so gosh darn American approximately it and the ritual reinforces in me my love of us of a and it makes me reflect onconsideration on our place in history. We're fortunate in limitless approaches.
As I become standing in line this morning I was considering this ritual of democracy and the way glad I become to be standing in that line. Call me a idiot, but the whole revel in always makes me experience satisfied to be part of matters.
Hank Steuver wrote a bit in today's Washington Post in this very subject matter and I without a doubt like what he had to mention. So here it is in its entirety.
The Prized Token of Sticking Together on Election Day
By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Since we are possibly status in a as a substitute long line proper now, allow us to take a moment to praise something as simple as wearing one's little "I Voted" decal all day lengthy, and wearing it today-- despite the fact that, to some humans, the decal says sucker.
Please note that the sticker doesn't say "I AlreadyVoted." (Though there's a market for those. About 30 million Americans, one-quarter of all voters, already have voted.) The sticker doesn't say "First!"
There's so much to like approximately the status component nowadays, amid all the drab beige, taking within the odor of someone else's espresso, rereading the entire newspaper, caught within the line of citizens that does not appear to transport but, in fact, does. Then comes the sticker.
What a fantastic and dull aspect, voting collectively.
The District of Columbia Voter's Guide showed up several days in the past in our mail, and on the front cover changed into a cartoon of a ballot and a pencil keeping palms and leaping fortuitously. There was something rudimentary and childlike, almost Hello Kitty approximately them. It made it sense like social research elegance. It's dorky cool, greater cool than looking Kirsten Dunst vote early. "You complete us," examine the adorable words underneath the Pencil and the Ballot, in a retro '70s-style italic. What followed turned into 57 sober pages of commands, regulations, sample ballots, statements from candidates and long lists of capability advisory community commissioners.
For now, the "I Voted" decal stays gloriously the identical. Oh, a few jurisdictions may also dress it up --Prince William's [county] sticker is a good deal jazzier than the District's simple white circle with the red "X" in the box -- however the message is clearer than ever: I kick it antique college. I waited in keeping with every body else on the appointed day, due to the fact "all people" is the whole concept. The "I Voted" sticker has been round a long time, at least 5 election cycles. (A Florida manufacturer claims to were making "the authentic" version considering 1986, however it probable goes back further.)
Today, what is left of We stands in line for what may be the final actual Election Day. By 2012 and 2016, there will possibly be an Election Window, like the enrollment period for organisation health plans. U cn txt ur vote to the # at the scrn.
"We" is so lost. We click on on our faves and dismiss the rest. We do not see films collectively anymore within the dark at appointed times. We don't watch TV indicates after they at the beginning air; we watch them while we want. We do not watch or read the same news the identical manner. We do not sing the equal Top forty. We don't even watch the Super Bowl together anymore. We pause it and allow it flow forth in real time so you can watch it numerous mins behind, apart, because you don't like advertisements.
You sure have gotten a lot of exposure lately. You are Joe the Plumber. You and your family. You, you, you and no one else. You and your social networks online. You've grown accustomed to setting your own preferences. You want everything now.
Because in many states, you can! Have it your way! The customer is always right, and the customer is always you.
Is voting early like ready all night time to ensure you get the first of the new iPhones? Did it make you sense greater American? Is it like those kids from the Ron Clark Academy, dancing and singing about "you may vote however you like"?
There turned into this video that popped up the alternative day, from a get-out-the-vote group in California called Why Tuesday?, which suggests a dude named Jacob Soboroff (the founder of Why Tuesday?) and actress Kirsten Dunst, and their little experience to the Los Angeles County clerk's office to vote early. They are conceited and manner, way beforehand. It become days in the past --Oct. 20. They made it seem like a date. "You guys have to pass vote," he says. "Or volunteer," she says.
Granted, there are all sorts of legitimate reasons to vote early, up to and including rampant hipsterism or the paranoid feeling that your vote could get lost in a crowd. Voting early may be all the rage, but it's a little like having a black smear on your forehead on Ash Tuesday. Does it get you that much closer to heaven?
It says you stood in a school cafeteria or a branch library or a community middle gym this morning or this afternoon, or you will stand there tonight after work, and it says that you stood there due to the fact you notion of your self as no less noble (and no greater vital) than all people else. These days, that's huge. You voiced your opinion at the same time as also final a part of a "we." You took your flip. It's the opposite of "The Amazing Race." It's the incredible wait.
