If you voted by mail or by absentee ballot in upcoming local municipal elections, please accept my congratulations on your participation in the democratic process. If it dawned on you that (A) November starts next week, and (B) Tuesday is Election Day and your schedule is already filling up, then allow me to urge, beg, chide, convince, and entice you into finding out where you are supposed to vote on Tuesday and going there to cast your ballot.
I will put my money where my mouth is and assure you of my intentions to drive a few blocks to Marshall Middle School and fill out a ballot for City of Lynn candidates. My election year candidate choices are rarely set in stone and this year is no exception.
I’m inclined to vote for the underdog or give someone who hasn’t been in office an opportunity to prove themselves. But the motivating reason that gets me to the polling places is the fact that I enjoy voting.
I like the idea that all the talking and shouting and slogans and finger-pointing boil down to the voters taking pen to paper and making a decision about who wins or loses on Election Day.
I stopped caring years ago about whether or not the candidate or candidates of my choosing won or lost. I have rarely picked a winner and I don’t cast a vote in hopes “my guy” wins.
I like saying “Hi” to people I know. I like seeing parents who dragged their children to the polls with them. I like to see the people who got up at 6 a.m. to work the polls knowing they won’t be home until 9 p.m.
Poll workers aren’t election gurus or political experts. You can be cynical and say they are a bunch of retirees interested in passing the time drinking coffee with their friends. Or you can take the high road and appreciate poll workers for the effort they make to ensure Election Day goes off without a hitch.
Those last three words were written in jest. You don’t need to strain your eyes reading a library’s worth of history books to know American elections have rarely been drama-free.
We live in a democracy. That means everybody has an opinion and everybody gets to scream about rigged voting, hanging chads, insufficient polling-place parking, and disenfranchisement without getting tossed in jail.
I walked into my first polling place with a black eye courtesy of a fellow student at my high school who took exception to the decision by me and a friend to rip a Gerald Ford bumper sticker off his locker.
The offended party was an amateur boxer and he hit me twice before I even knew what was happening. End of story? I voted for Jimmy Carter.
The days of punches getting thrown on Election Day are the stuff of Tammany Hall politics and not 21st-century electioneering. But elections and voting procedures remain controversial — especially after the 2020 election. We all want to point fingers at one another and level accusatory claims. But the most important decision we can make on Tuesday and every Election Day in the future is to get to the polls and cast a ballot.
Everyone loves to gripe about this politician winning or that politician losing. But the biggest losers in any election are the voters who stand on the sidelines and don’t vote. Turnout in the 2017 Lynn mayoral final election was 28 percent. That means almost three out of four voters didn’t cast a ballot. We need to boost that percentage next Tuesday.
Get out and vote.
