I Voted

by: Justin Krebs

Thu Oct 30, 2008 at 14:08

I went to the New York Board of Elections.  I filed out my absentee ballot request form in person.  I sat in what looked like a classroom with about 3 dozen other people at any given time.  We all waited patiently.  Somewhat quietly.  Waiting like we were on a mission.

And we were.

It actually took over a half-hour before they called my name and handed me my ballot.  By then, I was feeling a little weary from the room.  

But once I filled out my ballot, and as I sealed the envelope, I couldn't repress a big smile.

Other people caught it -- they smiled too.

Then, five minutes later, I had to fight back tears.  

As I exited the building onto the street, I just felt overwhelmed.

Why?

Was it a similar feeling that a friend's mother expressed to her daughter in an email yesterday:

Dear Suzan,

Today I, the great-great granddaughter of slave owners, voted for an African-American for President of the United States.  When I saw his name on the voting machine, it hit me in a way I did not expect.  I felt the weight of history and had to blink back tears until I got outside.  No matter what the outcome, we have advanced as a people and a civilization in my lifetime and I feel privileged to have been a witness and a participant in all this.

Love,
Mom

It's not just that sense of history...it's not just that hope for advancement...it was also the people I rode down the subway with:

- a middle-aged white woman, classic New Yorker-in-a-rush, who was on her way to the airport.  Her ballot never arrived, so she stopped off before flying off to make sure she voted.

- a Latino man, late 20s or early 30s, lowkey, hat pulled down low...holding his bi-racial daughter who he had brought with him...she'll be a lifelong voter.

- the elevator operator who grabbed my hand and gave it a hearty pump as I stepped onto the groundfloor, grinning at my Obama button.

Did they evoke the tears in me?

Or was it the sense that we might actually take this country forward, out of the hands of a gang that has screwed it up and screwed us up...that we might restore some of the lost beauty and glory of our country.

Sappy?  Silly?  Perhaps.  But I tell everyone now: vote -- not only because you should, because your country needs you to, but because you might feel overwhelmed with emotion when you do, and it's a beautiful feeling.