It’s cloudy today, though there isn’t supposed to be rain and we might hit a record high for this late in October. Hmm.
I voted yesterday, waiting, for the first time since I started voting early, in a long line that stretched down the block from the polling place. As we waited, we had a few people in cars yelling things at us. One woman rolled down her window and simply said “Kamala Harris! Kamala Harris!” as she passed.
One guy, thinking he was funny, said “What are they giving away there, free money?”
“Democracy,” I yelled back, no surprise that I was the lone responder.
“What would get you to line up like that,” he said, or something like that, trying again, his first attempt not landing.
“Freedom,” I said. “Control over your own body,” I continued as he drove away.
People walked up, assessed the line, and asked when the voting would start in the morning. I waited a little over an hour outside; a bit inside and then we had so many judges on the ballot, the electronic vote was 21 pages.
But even knowing there was a line outside growing ever longer, even knowing people inside were waiting for the voting machines, still I took a moment to savor seeing Vice President Harris’ name on the ballot, I took a deep breath and clicked the box with a smile on my face.
One of the most satisfying votes I’ve ever cast.
In Chicago, early voting starts with central sites in the Loop and then goes to the neighborhoods, with 50 local early voting sites scattered throughout the city, one in every ward. You can go to any site, you don’t have to use the one in your ward, which means you can go where you work as well.
And I didn’t know you can do the same on election day, Chicago. Any voting site. So keep that in mind.
We asked the poll worker keeping the line organized what the volume has been, how it compares. Apparently normally they get at that site about 1000 voters a week; this election, it was 3600 last week, the first it was open. That doesn’t include all the mail in ballots people were dropping off, either.
Some people left the line but likely because they had to as it was the middle of the day. When I finished, the line stretched even further back.
So glad I got it done.
I saw some numbers breaking down early voting by age in various swing states, and younger people need to step up your game. Think about it: you have the most to lose under fascism, statistically the longest to deal with the aftermath if donald gets his way.
And if we’ve learned anything from the autocratic dictators around the world they sure like to relinquish power once they get it. Putin has been in power for 24 years. And they also have a Constitution and an amendment that limits a president to being in power for two (consecutive) terms. He just got their legislature to rewrite it.
That is not a life you want. That’s not a life you want your children to have. You have the power to stop it, to prevent it, to literally change the course of history.
Don’t wait. Don’t put it off, our rights and freedom and democracy can’t wait any longer, it’s now or it’s gone.
What are they giving away?
Democracy.
Have a great Tuesday.
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