Rocked the Vote: Failed to Care

Leaving the elementary school and its geometric design emphasized with color-wheel selected paint, I felt the sting of failure. The bright red sticker placed over my heart screamed I VOTED and instinctively I raised my right hand to cover it.

I remember watching Clinton’s first election as a fourth-grader. Granted I didn’t pay attention but we had one intimidating teacher who shared her political passions. She emphasized the importance of keeping up with current events (she harped on that again and again the following year while preparing me for the state geography bee), understanding crisis and plotting a course of action. And after we did that choose the candidate that followed our idea.

Clearly that is not how it works. I didn’t do my homework, didn’t prepare for the test. I voted with limited knowledge and poor options. But consistent with the apathy of my generation the guilt of civic duty paralleled my conscious allowing me to believe that my actions ceased to matter. Until I hit the 24-hour mark.

Monday night the anxiety plowed over me and the exhaustion of it led me to retire early. So much for my night of cramming before the big test. Driving to voice my convictions I realized I had none. At the booth my index finger hovered over two boxes. My toe tapped in frustration, my left fingers drumming on the privacy slab, my ears ringing with the incessant chatter from the poll workers beside me. Unless they wanted to vote for me I really needed them to stop talking. And when I began to wish that for the quiet comfort of the BYU Testing Center I knew the election had ruined me.

Touch and done.

I rushed through the remaining pages and watched the print out roll by with more blank votes than checked. In part I gratefully acknowledged the Republican dominance of my state. But then I cursed my luck of leaving Colorado, a swing-state, where the excitement of a counting vote might have spurred my political activity. I guess I have fours years to transfer back.