Month: September 2008

Jade writes in about her family’s split-ticket voting and accompanying stub-posting tradition:

Growing up in my house, my parents were always cancelling each others’ votes out. My mom’s a moderate Democrat, my dad’s hard-core Republican. However, they both always encouraged each other to vote no matter what. It was an election-day ritual for my house that both my parents’ voting stubs went up on the fridge door as soon as they got home, to prove that they’d done their civic duty. One of the first things I did when I went to college was register to vote, and even though none of my roommates shared the tradition or understood why I did it, the day I first voted (presidential election in 2004), I got back to the apartment with my voting stub and proudly tacked it on the fridge, knowing that I shared that solidarity with my parents, even so many miles from home. I’m even farther from home this year, and not voting in-person because I’ve kept my registry in my home state, but I’m going to ask my mom to stick whatever leftover remnant you get from an absentee ballot on the fridge along with hers and my brother’s stubs come November, and I know my boyfriend will be putting his stub on our fridge here. The tradition lives on.

She also mentions the elementary school tradition of the mock vote:

The other voting story I have is from 1992, when I was seven. My class did a “mock vote” around the presidential election that year, complete with a mini-debate and encouragement to talk to our parents about how they were voting and why. I decided that I would vote for Clinton. However, our class didn’t do blind voting. It was “Put your hand up if you vote for…” And the vast majority of the class voted for Bush Sr. So, fearing ridicule if I stuck to my decision, so did I. When my mother asked me after school how it went, I told her, and she expressed her deep disappointment in me, that I hadn’t stood by my decision. That feeling of shame stays with me to this day – I’ve never thanked her, but I probably owe a lot of my stubbornness in political debates to that remembered feeling of having Done Wrong by not standing up for my principles.

In 1988, when I was about the same age, our school did a blind mock vote for the Bush-Dukakis election. Not knowing anything about the presidential candidates or their beliefs, I opted for Dukakis because I liked the sound of his name. My elementary school, like most of the nation, voted for Bush. I was crushed. Looking back, there were many relevant names and faces in that election as there have been in recent years, from Biden to Gore to Jackson to Dole. This was the election that launched Ann Richards and sunk good ol’ boy Hooser Dan Quayle. Take a look.

In blogospheric news, Jack & Jill Politics has launched a wiki project that aims to publicize efforts to suppress voter rights. Liminal States has a comprehensive review on why working against voter suppression efforts is such an important action point for this election season. Take a look at the Voter Suppression Wiki and it’s first call to action, a Republican attempt to shut down a 3,000 person registration drive in an Alabama prison.

Send your stories to fauxrealtho at gmail dot com with “VOTE” in the title, including your name and a link to your website, and we will publish your stories as they come in along with additional information about voting registration, disenfranchisement, and election news. Send us what you’ve got.

Meanwhile, you still have at least through September and early October to get registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election. Some states allow voters to register through the end of October. You can find out your state’s deadline here.

Catherine is a first-time voter this season, and she writes:

My parents were always great about getting me involved with politics from young age. I remember going to a Clinton rally when I was six wearing a shirt that read “Someday a Woman Will Be President.”

I’m 18, so I’ll be voting for the first time this November, and I’m thrilled to be part of such a historic election. I was too young to vote in the primary for my state, so I worked as an election official instead, and it was an incredibly inspiring experience. Our ward usually didn’t have a high voter turn-out, especially for primaries, and election day happened to be especially cold and icy, so we didn’t expect a lot of people to show up. The voters proved us wrong – people came in droves. Our ward, which usually registered one or two new voters at the most, registered almost two hundred. Many of them came from a poor neighborhood that historically has had extremely low turn-out. I was amazed by the lengths these people had gone to to vote – they took off work, rode the bus together if they didn’t have a car, brought their children if they couldn’t find childcare, but overwhelmingly they came, because they wanted our country to change. Some of them were grandparents who were voting for the first time in their lives, and their hope was contagious.

I really think there’s something special about this election – people are getting excited again, and if we can find a way to take that excitement and work with it, we can transform the face of our country. Being an election official was one of the most exhausting jobs I’ve ever done, but it was also the best, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of that process.

I’m trying to pull my schedule together to work the polls on election day so I too can be part of that process.

FEMINISTE is soliciting stories about your voting experiences to help encourage registered and unregistered voters to vote.

Do you have a story about working a registration drive? About working the polls? Do you live in a split-ticket household? What kinds of traditions or stories does your family have when it comes to voting in an election? Do you have additional ideas on how to participate in the election during the final weeks? How is the subtext of race and gender this election season going to affect how you, your friends, and family members, are going to vote — or is it?

Send your stories to fauxrealtho at gmail dot com with “VOTE” in the title, including your name and a link to your website, and we will publish your stories as they come in along with additional information about voting registration, disenfranchisement, and election news. Send us what you’ve got.

Meanwhile, you still have at least through September and early October to get registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election. Some states allow voters to register through the end of October. You can find out your state’s deadline here.

Feminister SnowdropExplodes sends in this story about voting in the UK, who says, “I figure the exercise of democratic rights is as important, and much the same, in either country!” We agree:

My first time voting was in the 1997 General Election, which is famous because it was the landslide that brought the Labour Party to power after 18 years of right wing Conservative party rule. In the UK, it’s a legal requirement to be registered to vote (but too many people still let it lapse, or never bother to get registered). Registration is done by address, and there’s no “party affiliation” involved, so it was enough for me to let my parents fill in the form for everyone them living in the household.

However, because I was going to be at University when the election took place, I did have to make a personal effort in order to be able to vote: I needed to get an absentee ballot form, and do the paperwork for that myself.

As I said, 1997 was the year that the Conservatives were kicked out of office, and there was a lot of excitement at the prospect. However, there were already concerns about the rightward drift of the Labour Party, and the conception of the “New Labour project” by Tony Blair.

On Election Night, I stayed up all night watching the results come through. The thrill of finally seeing the back of the Conservatives was incredible, and I, with my first ever vote, felt like I was a small part of that triumph. I was disappointed when my MP was not unseated, but the area where I live is staunchly Conservative, and he was very safe indeed. Even so, as dawn broke the next day, I went out and it seemed like a new dawn was coming over the country as well. As it turned out, of course, “New Labour” turned out to be Old Conservative in disguise, and the excitement turned to disillusionment within a month or two. Nevertheless, my memories of my first time voting centre on the fact that it did end up with toppling the old, rightwing regime – much as we can hope that in November, the old rightwing regime in the USA will also be toppled!

I can only hope.

In other news, Greg Palast has a new project coming out soon, a voting guide that covers “the Six Ways They’re Stealing the Election – and the Seven Ways you can Steal It Back.” Keep up with the site in upcoming days for an available download at Steal Back Your Vote.

IF YOU HAVE A STORY TO SHARE email fauxrealtho at gmail dot com with “VOTE” in the title. You still have through early October to get registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election.