Election Day Thoughts

It's Election Day here in Virginia where we have a Gubernatorial Race happening. We've endured endless political propaganda on TV and have had many canvassers come to our home reminding us to  go vote and sharing their candidates' platforms. I always give them my time and attention and never rush them because I used to do Get Out the Vote (GOTV) work and know how hard it can be. 

Yangkyu and I go to the polls every year together - it's sort of become our thing. We used to take Piri and Bartles with us and one of us would wait in the car while the other goes votes. Yangkyu also had the option of remote work for a while and so it was always easy for him to opt to work from home on Election Day so we could always make it a family affair. 

This year it took a bit more coordination with his new job and him no longer having the option of remote work. Yangkyu also has night class today which means he needed to get into work earlier so that he could fill his hours to leave early to go to class, which just made everything more complicated.  Normally leave for work at 6 am today but that's when polls would open. 

Yangkyu does, I believe, qualify to apply for absentee voting but I don't. Which still puts us in a predicament because I have a guest dog today and we have a policy of never leaving the dogs unsupervised, not even for a short while. 

We couldn't go after Yangkyu comes home after class (polls would close by then) and we couldn't go separately (my guest dogs) and so we ended up getting up at the crack of dawn and heading to the polls around 5:45 am with just Hank, our guest dog. Lady ended up waiting at home because we really needed this to be a super quick rushed affair so that Yangkyu could hit the road to go to work by 6:15 am latest.

Thankfully the lines weren't ridiculous and we were done with voting by 6:20 am. It wasn't a pleasant experience. It just felt so hectic and rushed.

You know, when I used to live in California, everyone was eligible to vote by absentee. It was quick and simple and it made sure that people were not deterred from voting - whether it was because they had work or school or because of language or mobility issues.

When I used to live in New York, polls closed much later to accommodate as many people and workers as possible who had to commute long hours or got out of work later than the normal 9-5 schedule.

In Virginia, there is a set of eligibility requirements to vote absentee, none which I qualify for, and polls close by 7 pm. I kept thinking, for us, it was a bit of a pain to make sure we cast our vote today,  but we did it. I mean you gotta vote so jump through hoops right? But I was thinking about other families and students, and workers who were or felt they were deterred to go vote with such limitations, much harsher and difficult than ours. 

Voting should be not hard and complicated. Voting should be accessible and easy. 

PS - I used to volunteer to work as a poll worker (interpreter) in New York on election days and witnessed first hand many voters whose first languages weren't English who were discriminated against (we worked with lawyers from the Department of Justice to monitor these incidents) or had lost their votes because they were given the wrong instructions (NY had these ridiculous big ballot machines which were tricky to use and people would pull on the lever without casting their vote which ultimately lost them the chance to vote for their candidates). I have heard of cases where it was hard for people to even make it out to the polls because it was just too hard (mostly immigrant workers who didn't have flexible work schedules). I also know of many people who don't vote simply because they don't care or are unaware. Meanwhile they have all the privileges to make their voting experience a more comfortable one as they know the language to make informed decisions and ask questions if they don't know how to cast their vote, they have cars, they have flexible schedules. This bothers me to no end.