I have always felt that casting a ballot is of the greatest privileges we have in our democracy. You may correctly deduce that I also grimace when I see various individuals and political groups that seem to be working hard to limit voting of certain groups as much as possible. I just do not understand this in our country, in our democracy. I'll move on since that is not the precise topic of this post.
The issue is voting - voting when you are qualified and certified to do so in a particular election. There have been times since I turned 18 when I simply forgot to vote. It was never intentional. A small confession this past Tuesday, our Primary voting day. I was going through some mental calisthenics on Monday night about voting. I did not make preparations to vote by early ballots through the mails, so it had to be in person. Before I retired from the parish, the place where I voted was about 50 yards from my office - a smidgen convenient - so I was also aware of an election and think that I always voted. Monday night, I was thinking about not voting in this primary. I had some reasons, frankly, none of them significant. It would be only the 2nd time I had voted in the town where I now live in retirement. Went to sleep Monday night with this as an unresolved issue.
Woke up at 5 which seems to be my custom. I went to view the actual ballot on the internet. Read over the names of the candidates - and only discovered one candidate that I knew something about. That was fine since I had always liked this person's service in the region. Arrived at the polling place 15 minutes after it opened. Not many people around. Asked the poll worker if I would receive a sticker for voting. She said Yes - would you like to take it now? I replied, "Yes, please." (I may be wrong sometimes, but seldom am impolite.)
Went into the voting booth. Pressed the buttons quickly and completed the process. At the end, I laughed at myself. How could I have thought about not voting for even one second when it means so much to me to cast a ballot. We are a strange and fickle people! I strode out smiling to my car, complete with my Voted sticker, and headed home.
As I drove home, my thoughts went back to this recent phenomenon of people trying to block others from voting. I thought about the countries where people line up for miles so that they can cast a vote. Even in parts of our country where all sorts of obstacles are placed in the way of qualified persons being able to vote, the sacrifices people make and the lessons in civics they show all of us are profoundly moving. If we don't support our democracy, then did so many people die in vain? I hope not. We must remember the sacrifices so many made for us so that we might vote and fly our flag.
These seem to be troubled times. Sigh.
The late Dr. Billy Graham's thoughts on not voting:
