The Day Is Finally Here
Well, this was a long time coming—Election Day 2024. Raise your hand if you’re more than ready for it to be over.
That’s what I thought. Me, too.
I’m beginning this day the way I have every election day—save one—since I’ve been old enough to vote. Namely…I’m going to my polling place and casting my ballot in person.
The one time I did not was in 1984, the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in. I was in college in Iowa City and wanted to vote at home where I knew the candidates and felt like I could make a difference, as opposed to the People’s Republic of Johnson County. So I made application and was approved with good cause as a college student to get a paper ballot in advance. It was a huge thing, and I sat on the floor of the living room in my family’s house and made Xs in the corresponding boxes. It frankly was unsatisfying, certainly as opposed to flipping levers and hearing the votes click on the voting machine.
Obviously technology has changed and we use pens and fill in ovals like we’re taking the ACT test…but I still far prefer voting in person on election day. It’s a chance to go to the community building in the closest town, see neighbors and other folks we don’t see except at this time every two years, and to get—and wear with pride—an “I Voted!” sticker.
I’m recording this yesterday, and will have spent last night looking at the sample ballot I downloaded from the county auditor’s web site, deciding who gets my vote. A quick glance suggests it will not be a straight ticket—it never is—and suggests I need to study up on the judges who are on the back side of the ballot. I stick with the theory that if I don’t know about a race, I skip it—because it’s not fair to those who put their names on the ballot to have voters made guesses based upon nothing tied to qualifications.
Truthfully, it would be far more convenient to go vote in person at the courthouse in advance, or do mail in a ballot. But I’m sticking with “vote on election day” as the mantra, because voting should take at least a little effort. Too often it’s taken for granted, or as an afterthought.
But too many who came before us fought and died for our right to self-govern. Seems like the least I can do is to show up and take the process seriously.
Regardless, I hope you will honor election day in your own way, either today or in the past three weeks, by casting an informed vote—we have problems, folks…and they need to be fixed. We the voters are the only ones who can start that change.
