Spitball Army

I thought I’d get to the polling place by 6:00 a.m. and be the first in line, or close to the first. Then, last night, it dawned on me that I would have the privilege of waiting just as long at the #1 position as I would at #56. So I take my time getting to the community school polling place, arriving at around 6:20. Coffee mug in hand, I step into the line. I am indeed #56.

In front of me is a young black woman, wearing orange hospital scrubs, sipping on a Minit Mart coffee cup through a plastic stirrer and speaking in a very low voice through her Bluetooth earphone. Arriving right after me, as #57, is a tall, thin white guy in a meticulously pressed white shirt and tie, the knot perfect and symmetrical. In his hand, he cradles a BlackBerry. I greet him with a nod. He responds by lowering his head and commences a non-stop series of text messages, maybe e-mails, with dueling thumbs. Clickclickclickclick…

At about 6:35, the poll director comes out to the line, which by that time had snaked out past the school auditorium, across the parking lot, and to the street. “Be sure to have your ID ready when you approach the poll!” she announces in a loud matronly tone. “And don’t forget that you can vote straight party on this ballot, for all Democratic or all Republican candidates. If you do that, if you fill in the straight party option on the ballot, and you then vote for an individual candidate, that individual vote will override your straight party choice. I mean, the voting system will let that vote override what your straight party choice is.”

I never liked this particular announcement. This woman does this at every big election and, to me, it just sounds too suggestive. I have voted straight party in a couple of elections, not because I felt the need to support one party’s domination over the other, but because my favored candidates all happened to be members of one party. In those instances, I never filled in the “straight party” option on the ballot, instead going through the process of filling in each oval with a deliberate finality. I picked up this habit from my mother, who always told me that if the machine screwed up her ballot with only one box marked, then the whole ballot would be lost. I can’t argue with that.

At 6:45, someone near the front of the line decides to divert the first forty or so people in line down a breezeway attached to the auditorium. This moves us all forward. I am now standing within ten feet of the entrance to the polling place. Shortly after the line settles into its new formation, there is a bustling toward the rear of the group, at about #100. An elderly woman with a convertible walker comes rolling past us with careful stepping, but at a steady pace. Her companion says, to no one in particular, “I hope you won’t mind, she’s 97 years old.” I chime in with the scattering of agreeable nods from the line. “Put her at the front of the line!” I say. That, of course, was already the plan. She gets to the auditorium door and sits down on the walker’s seat. “They told me I’d never walk again, and that was at 92!” she says to the former #1, who is cradling a hardback novel under her arm.

Poll Lady comes out a few minutes later. “I have a clarification to make,” she begins. “About straight party voting. If you choose to vote with the straight party option, and then you vote for an individual candidate in that party, it will mess the machines up, and your vote won’t count.” Them’s fightin’ words, Poll Lady, especially on Election Day. “So, don’t vote straight party and also fill in a box for an individual in that party. Only fill in the box if the individual you are voting for is in a different party than your straight party choice.” She iterates this a couple times, each go-round with slightly different wording, just to keep everyone guessing.

“Why even mention straight party voting?” I muse to the couple standing on either side of me in line. White Guy keeps on clicking, not even stopping his thumb dance while he utters these words plainly: “It’s their constitutional right to screw up their own vote.” I look at him. He doesn’t look up. Clickclickclickclick… “I don’t think it’s worded that way in the constitution,” says I. The clicking continues, now with a peculiarly rarified drone.

Black Woman starts talking to herself. For a moment, I actually do think that she is talking to herself. Then I remember that she’s wired into the ether. She’s on the telephone. “Is your hair messed up?” she asks someone. “Make sure you brush it before you leave.” She must be talking to a child. “I’ll see you when I pick you up.”

Finally, the doors open, and everyone is civil and patient as they file in. There are four tables inside the auditorium, each covering one-fourth of the alphabet. Oddly, the shortest line is at my table, L-R. I am now fourth in line. When I get to the table, I surrender my driver’s license to the first poll worker who, seeing my last name – Osuna – does a double take. Yes, he’s my cousin, I think of saying, although I do not. She crosses me off her list and directs me to the second poll worker at the other end of the table, who just happens to be my next-door neighbor. She is focused like a laser on the job at hand, crossing off or writing in names with the precision of a Catholic nun, which she happens to be. “Good morning!” I say to her. She is warm and gregarious, as always, and reaches to hand me a ballot. I consider asking her for two, as a little joke, but determine that the humor level of that particular quip is pretty low.

I submit my ballot, with a fulfilled sense of purpose and pride.  At last!  The ballot-sucking machine tells me that I am #16.

On the way out of the auditorium, I pass a neighbor who lives a block up my street. She is standing in line with her adopted son, a little boy of Latin American heritage. He looks at me, sizing me up. With complete seriousness, he asks me, “Did you pick John McCain?” I look at her, I look at him. “I’ll never tell,” I say with a sideways, knowing glance that is a bit too grandfatherly for my own comfort. What a wuss, he thinks to himself with a look that says to me, Oh you adults and your games! “I like Barack Obama!” he says forthrightly, raising his voice for all in line around us to hear. A big smile forms on his small brown face. I look right at him and, catching his contagious grin, say “Me, too.”