Election Day 2016
It’s 6 a.m. Over the noise of rain pounding on our metal roof, I heard rattling in the kitchen. My wife Sue is finishing breakfast, and about to head out the door to work on the election board at the Cordova Center. It’s still pitch dark out.
I actually like getting up early. Even in rainy Cordova, there are often sunrises we should all see. I was hoping there would be one on this day, to somehow bring rays of hope to a country exhausted by the most bitter presidential race in my lifetime.
I make a pot of coffee and then head to the polls. Jay Beaudin and Jeff Van Dyke are in the parking lot shooting the breeze, having already voted. I see Sewan Gelbach wandering around with a long piece of string. In fact, it is 200 feet in length, and tied to a parking pylon near the entrance to the Cordova Center. What the heck?
Turns out she is measuring that distance from the polling place all around the new building, to ensure no one violates the rule about electioneering inside that distance. After I vote, she proudly displays a map sketched in pencil of her findings. I wonder who is going to patrol the perimeter?
I go across the street to get my wife a cup of coffee, actually white chocolate mocha. Nobody drinks “coffee” these days. Will Osborne cranks out the brew. He was an outstanding former math student when I taught at Cordova High School, and I joke about the 200-foot distance rule, wondering if Laura’s Shoppe is inside that circumference.
“It’s gotta be close,” he says. “Depends on how you define the measuring point.”
Give Will another A+ in geometry.
Standing in the rain beside my truck about ready to leave, I have a flashback to the last presidential election. It was held in the meeting room of the old library, and I had help deciding how to vote by a preschooler. I’m not into ancient news, but decided to prevail upon the editors of The Cordova Times to run a story I wrote for Election Day four years ago.
May the wisdom of a four year old guide us. After all, it is her future we are deciding.
And here it is.
A vote for four-year-olds
By Dick Shellhorn
For The Cordova Times
Election Day 2012
10:15 am.
My four-year-old granddaughter Ellie and I were walking to the Library from our place on Odiak Slough. A bright sunny day, streets a bit icy from overnight frost. A two-prong mission: go to the polls and vote; then check out some children’s books at the library.
Plus see Gramma, who was working at the polls, as she has done for many years. Ellie comes to our place every school day morning, staying until after lunch when we drop her off at Mt. Eccles PreSchool.
Grampa has done his best, but could tell he was no match for Gramma’s morning entertainment program. So actually there was a third factor in play, which I figured out pretty early, when at 9 a.m. Ellie asked when we could go to the library. Could read the disappointment on her face when I explained the library didn’t open until 10 a.m.
The polls opened at 7 a.m., so Gramma Sue had to be there before 6:30 a.m., and hence Ellie had not seen her this day. Incidentally, by the time the polls close and votes are counted, it’s usually around midnight. It’s not a very high paying job, and there is no lunch or dinner break. Plus the polling crew has to bring their own meals. Glad to know the government is pinching pennies somewhere.
Anyhow, Ellie and I are chatting it up on the walk. I’m trying to explain why American flags are flying, and people are streaming to the Library.
“It’s an election, a very important election,” say I. “We are going to decide who will be the president of our country.”
Whoops. Too many big words.
“What’s an election?”
“This election is where each of us votes for who we want to lead our country.”
“What does ‘vote’ mean, Grampa?”
“That’s where we mark the name of who we want for the job on a piece of paper, and then Gramma and her friends count up the marks to see who wins.”
A truck drives by with a barking dog in back, briefly distracting Ellie, but her wheels are turning.
“Why do we have to do all this, Grampa?”
“So everyone has a chance to choose who they think will do a good job.”
“Oh. Then I know who I’m going to vote for. Gramma. She always does a good job.”
Given the way things have gone lately, maybe it’s time to lower the voting age, to four.
