Soapbox

Election Training Class

This is not our first rodeo.
    But here we are in training class, because that's what we do. Every time, we practice it first. We practice every pen stroke, every  tick-mark and circle to be colored in. We go over how to connect the machines, where to put the flags, even where to find the card with a few helpful ASL signs in case we need it.
   It takes a while, but every detail counts in democracy. Your vote means nothing if we don't do our job correctly.
   You joke about the preponderance of old folk sitting at the roster tables, how you may as well be voting at a nursing home for all the white hair and orthopedic shoes, but if you thought for 10 seconds about how important our job is, you wouldn't be quite so impatient when the old guy with the coke-bottle glasses takes the time to double-check your signature before he sends you over to your booth. If you realized what a brutally long day it is for us, you would be less amused and more impressed by the octogenarians around you.

   It's always cold at 4:30 AM in November, dark and still. There are boxes to unpack, tables to set up and not quite enough coffee to keep you energized as you count the hours in your growingly uncomfortable chair, realizing that 8PM is a long way off.
   But there are also cheerful and familiar faces, intelligent questions and happy families teaching their children what citizenship is all about. And  this room full of people, however old or young they might be and whatever political persuasion guides them, are all aimed at the same target: to help everyone who can become a part of America by voting.
   Some voters are excited about their first time, and it always makes us feel proud. Some are hopeful. Some are anxious and cynical, or bored and unengaged. But every one of them matters equally to us.

    I wish I could say to all those  congress members and governors of all the states who are trying to place more and more locked doors between America and her citizens-  this is not our first rodeo.
   Every one of us here in this training room wants every legal, registered voter to vote. We do not need your locks and chains blocking the doorway which we are guarding. We know our job, and we take us very seriously.
    We know the difference between preventing fraud and just preventing voting.  When you propose a law that forbids us from telling someone who turns up at the wrong polling place where their proper location is… we know what that's about.  When you insist that we turn away an 80 year old woman who's been voting here for 50 years but who doesn't drive any more because she no longer has a driver's license… we know what that is about, too.
  You are saying that we don't matter. That we come here to practice and get up at 4:30 in the cold dark November mornings-  for nothing at all, because America isn't  really a place where every citizen who pays their taxes and registers their name has the same say as any other.

    We take that personally. We may be old, some of us, but we're not stupid. This isn't our first rodeo, and we know a pile of bull when we see it.