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.