My Vote

Image credit: Photo by macwagen on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

It's the day of elections here in the U.S., and I'm ready to vote as soon as the kids get home from school. Mark thinks I'm crazy, but I'm taking the two of them with me to the polls. He shook his head this morning and said, "You're braver than I am." (I mean, just because the kids tried to reset the electronic voting machines one year! Geez!) But I'm planning to plunge into this educational opportunity armed with games, snacks and (unlike some people, who will be hiring movers soon) an exit strategy. Should the kids start hanging from the chads, I plan to bail out and go back by myself after Mark gets home from work. At least we will have tried.

As I was looking over my sample ballot last night, I realized that, for the first time in my life, I still hadn't really decided how I was going to vote in the presidential election. It always seems to disturb people when I say that, as if the results of the election were hanging on my decision and great peril loomed if my solitary vote were cast in the wrong direction. But where I live it doesn't matter. It really doesn't. If all the undecideds swung one way (which they won't), my little state and its electoral college votes still wouldn't budge. My vote is symbolic. So last night, I was asking myself less "Who should be president?" than "What message do I want to send?"

There are a lot of different messages I could send to the candidates, the country, the world. I could vote for a third party candidate and say, "I'm tired of the contentious, divisive, winner-takes-all, two party system," which, frankly, I am. I could write in a vote for Hillary and say, "I want to vote for the person I still want to be president." Or I could vote for McCain or Obama and say... What?

I remember trying to dissect the last election with my friends and being unable to agree on the message we were supposed to take away from Bush's win or Kerry's loss. And it's clear to me now that I had no understanding of the vast and differing experiences that might lead one to make one choice or the other. This year, I've listened to pundits pick apart the reasons why my vote might go one way or the other. I've listened to friends try to persuade me to vote one way or the other. And it's clear to me that what they think I am (or have or ought to be) basing my vote upon doesn't get at the heart of what's important to me, personally, at all. Like a great electoral game of telephone, whatever message I intend to send won't be (hasn't been) the one the world gets.

So, this morning, I woke up feeling conflicted. If my vote is not important to the election (it won't, in my particular case, change who wins or loses), and it's not important in terms of the larger message it sends, what is important about it? And then my kids woke up, heard it was election day and asked me not to go vote without them. And I saw that I was looking at things (as usual) backwards.

My vote isn't about all those grandiose things I wanted, or believed, it to be about in the throes of crazy codependency. It's not about control or image. It's not about my personal ability to pick (or contribute to picking) the next leader of the country. It's not about the big message it sends to the candidates I'll never meet or the billions of people in the great big world around me. It's not about what my friends and neighbors think of me. It's not about passing someone else's test on the depth and truth of my beliefs or the goodness of my character. It's about whatever I want it to be about: just for me and for my kids.

So, today, I'm not voting for "hope" or "change" or "America" or "feminism" or "equality" or "peace" or "security" or "values" or "democracy" or "revenge." I'm not voting to promote an ideal or send a message to the world. I'm not even voting for "a better world for my children." I'm voting to show my children what's important to me, regardless of anyone else's interpretation and regardless of the outcome. And I'm voting to have fun in line. And get stickers. And hopefully not tamper with too many ballots.

Happy voting, you all!