Relative Something

Neither wind, clouds, nor a barely attached foot kept Cyndie from fulfilling her goal of voting in person yesterday in the 2022 mid-term U.S. election.

It wasn’t a sure thing for a while there. As we were driving home from the lake last Friday, Cyndie was on her phone trying to find somewhere she could get in for surgery right away. Not sure when she might end up being anesthetized, Cyndie called our town clerk to find out her options for voting in a situation like hers.

She broke her leg after the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot, so she was told that her only option would be to make it to the polling location for our township on election day between the hours it would be open. If surgery was going to happen on Tuesday (yesterday), the clerk said she could try to show up just as they open at 7:00 a.m. and someone could bring a ballot out to our car for her to fill out.

There were no other options for voting if emergency situations arise close to election day. It seems like a strong case for requesting an absentee ballot whether or not it is known to be needed. Vote at your convenience and no waiting.

Luckily, our Tuesday schedule was wide open. We were busy on Monday and surgery is happening today.

We chose to head out after an assumed morning rush of people voting on their way to work and before a possible lunch rush. Living in a rural area, it’s not really an issue. There were two electronic voting machines and three booths for manually filling out a ballot. Two people were signing in before us and several people were voting.

Cyndie picked an electric option and since they were then both occupied, I selected manual. I fed my completed ballot into a machine reader and then Cyndie came with a printout of her votes from the electronic ballot device and fed it into the reader as well.

It seems the only thing their electronic device does is color in the selections for you. The choices from both methods were ultimately recorded by one machine.

The flow of voters was consistent while we were there such that the poll workers were kept constantly busy but the waiting was a mere matter of seconds for our township neighbors fulfilling their civic responsibility of voting for our representatives in local and national government.

I didn’t watch the news last night and avoided any hype about results. Regardless of the outcomes, we will continue to put our shoulders to the wheel of healthy progress and send love out into the world.

I read an interesting perspective on navigating the election storm written by Dahlia Lithwick. Think about the weather and the stars. The weather can get rough and the direction we are going can be obscured by clouds. Hang on long enough and the stars will be visible again to guide us toward our goals.

I vote for love. Follow the stars in the sky.

.

.