A ballot in the head

As I deposited the ballot envelope, I could hear the patriotic swells of “Stars and Strips Forever.” But maybe that was just my imagination.

Earlier this month, I exhorted the legion of Waveflux readers to vote early because it would piss off antidemocratic patrician George Will. That’s far from the sole reason or even the best reason to get your vote in ahead of Election Day - you’re stuffed to the gills with “information” about your candidates by now and are perfectly capable of making reasoned decisions, despite the bleatings of pundits; the “front-loading” of political arguments, supposedly forced by early voting, is arguably a public good; the ability to vote on your own schedule rather than being limited to a prescribed 1/365th of the calendar is an affirmation of your own power as a voter, and is convenient besides - but given Will’s arrogant stance on the matter, the satisfaction of giving him a civic-minded middle finger is reason enough.

So today, I suited action to the word. I finally got around to requesting absentee ballots for my household - seeing as we will likely be much, much, much too busy and quite possibly far, far, far too distant from the polls on the big day in November. Following the instructions provided by Go Vote Absentee, I downloaded the forms for registered voters in the city of St. Louis. M and I each filled out our requests, and I faxed them last Wednesday to the office of the St. Louis City Clerk.

The envelopes containing the ballots arrived yesterday.

Below, your basic civic-duty action kit: one absentee ballot, one set of not-entirely-opaque instructions, one postage-paid return envelope which also served as an affidavit. The only inconvenience was that the envelope/affidavit had to be signed in the presence of a notary public and signed and stamped by that official.

I was instructed to make my selections by darkening the ovals (completely!) next to my choices with a number 2 pencil or a black or blue (not red!) pen. As absentee voters may have trouble getting a replacement ballot in case of incorrect marking or the like, it’s necessary to be rather careful in filling out the form. Being a bit of a worry wort about such things, I made a practice copy of the ballot and filled that out first. When I was certain of my mad ballot-marking skills, I filled out the actual form.

I am a believer in the secret ballot, thanks. Still, I’ll mention here that I was pleased to vote once more for my hard-working state rep, Rachel Storch (whom I actually met once; I should tell that story some time). I was equally pleased to vote against the little-remarked, thinly-veiled, anti-immigrant, bring-out-the-bigot state constitutional amendment to make English “the language of all governmental meetings at which any public business is discussed, decided, or public policy is formulated.” That’s including “conference calls, video conferences, Internet chat, or message board,” by the way.

This piece of xenophobic pandering was brought to you by state Rep. Brian Nieves of Washington. A Republican, shockingly enough. Whoever runs against Nieves in his next contest gets some money from me. In the meantime, my no vote on his amendment will have to suffice.

Oh, yeah: There was some politician from Chicago somewhere on the ballot, too. I may talk about him later.

Once the ballot was completed, all that remained was to cool my heels for a few minutes in lobby before getting my ballot duly stamped by a calmly professional and rather attractive notary. Then off to the ballot box - in this case, the nearest mailbox. As I deposited the envelope, I could hear the patriotic swells of “Stars and Strips Forever.” But maybe that was just my imagination. At any rate, the tune accompanied me all the way back to the office.

And that’s that. I didn’t get a “I Voted” sticker, but I can live with that, I think. Hope you can live with it too, George.

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