Paranoid that the polls would be so overcrowded that I might not be able to vote, I set my alarm for 5 a.m. I showered and shaved, and by 5:45 I was approaching the mighty pillars of Moss School, ready to cast my ballot.
There was an eerie early-morning silence, but when I opened the gym door, the morning came to life. Poll workers buzzed around the dusty space, coffee was being heartily sipped, and early-bird voters waited for the polls to open. I signed my name, took my voting receipt, and stood in line, the first voter in Metuchen’s District 6.
I had five minutes to wait. Three friendly female poll workers talked among themselves about the handsomeness of John Edwards, and I wondered if their conversation broke the law that states: “There should be no electioneering within 100 feet of the polling place.”
The hardwood gym floor at Moss School conjured images of my own elementary school experiences of dodge ball and square dancing. Looking at the red-canopied voting booth, I remembered being a small boy and hearing my dad’s voice: “Voting is a democratic duty, son.”
I thought about how hard the candidates worked to get my vote, how much money they spent to sway me one way or another, the amount of energy each candidate and their families expended just to get me to say: Yes, I want you to represent me.
I thought about the 40 percent of the world’s population that does not have the right to vote. I reminded myself that the right to vote is a rare and precious privilege.
With the exception of a few ancient examples where men with property were allowed to vote (and then only for a few decades), the universal right to vote for men in the United States has existed for slightly over 200 years; for women, 84 years; and for all citizens regardless of their color, 39 years.
Thus, the right to vote on planet Earth (and only in some countries), as a percentage of modern human history is approximately 5,000 years or so, about 4 percent for men, 2 percent for women, and less than 1 percent for citizens of all races. Democracy, I thought to myself, is still an infant.
“The polls are now open!”
Entering the booth and closing the red canopy, I made my selections. Click, click, click, punch, it was over. Overwhelmed by the importance of the moment, I expected the voting machine to sing an aria celebrating the minor miracle that a simple citizen like me can have my say. But the voting machine didn’t sing, and I was soon off to work.
I’m not the only voting-obsessed person in my household. My wife voted later in the day.
Because her grandparents were victims of the famous 2000 Palm Beach County Bush v. Gore ballots, it took her several minutes to check, recheck, and double-check that she was voting for her chosen candidates.
At one point, the election official asked, “Miss, are you doing OK in there?”
Despite all the talk about living in a divided country, there fortunately seems to be no debate about our right to vote.
As long as 6,000 Metuchenites, 24,000 Edisonians, and 116 million Americans continue to exercise their most precious right, it should stay that way.
John Aden Lewis is a resident
of Metuchen
John A den L ewis