Voting in Small Town America
The first thing you should know is that politics is not my thing. Politics actually gives me a bit of anxiety. Okay, more than a bit.
I actively avoid political content on social media. I choose not to read more news articles than is absolutely necessary. And I will immediately exit the room if someone turns on a TV debate for fear that my skin will literally crawl right off my body.
BUT….and here’s a big but…
I will always do my own research and vote. I am extremely grateful to live in the country and era that I do, and I’m well aware of the centuries of effort it took for this country, as well as for my family, to get to this democratic state (my family escaped communist rule within the past 2 generations).
I will always honor the right I have to vote. So like a good little American citizen, living in a brand new state since the last time I voted, I filled out all the paperwork to register to vote in our new town.
Ever since we moved to Idaho, I imagined what voting would be like in our new small town. Everything is different to me in rural Idaho compared to suburban Chicago, so it would be no surprise that voting would be different too.
Remembering the number of voting precincts in suburban Chicago (there’s practically one on every corner) and that our new home was located outside the hustle and bustle of our 3,000-person town, I assumed that our voting would take place in someone’s garage in our semi-remote neighborhood.
Yes, this is really what I imagined. I must have seen a picture of obscure voting locations when I was younger, so I assumed, come early November of 2020, that I would drive to Farmer Smith’s barn and cast my ballot in between his tractor and his freshly harvested mule deer.
I might have been off in my assumptions.
So 5 days before arguably one of the most dramatic elections of my lifetime, I called our county courthouse to find out which neighbor’s barn I would be voting from.
“What’s your address?” the woman on the other end of the line asks me. “…Oh, you’re in a mail-in precinct,” she tells me.
A what? This Chicago suburbanite had never heard of such a thing. My sweet-sounding county clerk tells me that no matter if there’s a global pandemic or not, I will always receive a mail-in ballot. I have no physical precinct.
My dreams of walking out of Farmer Smith’s barn, proudly displaying my “I voted” sticker after me and the neighbors slapped each other on the back over fresh cookies baked by none other than Mrs. Farmer Smith herself were flattened in an instant.
The only problem was…I never received a mail-in ballot to send in. In all my small town voting aspirations, I must have not checked the right box or something. I had no ballot.
“What do I do now?” I asked the clerk on the other side of the line.
“Are you going to be home tonight?” she asks. Well that’s a weird question, I thought. “…yes?” I respond.
Without missing a beat, she replies “I’ll just drive you a ballot, you can cast your votes, and then I’ll bring your ballot back to the courthouse.”
(What you should know here is that we don’t actually live in the same county as the city we live in. It just so happens that our front property line is the edge of a different county than almost all of the other 3,000 residents of our town. While the rest of town is calling the courthouse that’s 2 miles from their house, I’m calling a courthouse 47 miles from our house.)
“Um…do you live near us?” I ask.
“Oh gosh, no.” she says.
“We’re an hour drive from you - each way! You can’t drive out here just for me to vote,” I argue.
Her response was quick and simple, “I can’t deny your right to vote. It’s really no problem at all.”
This woman just told me that driving 2 hours, round-trip, would be “no problem at all.” I doubt I could have gotten someone to drive 5 minutes to bring me a ballot back in Chicago!
My proud inner democratic citizen held back tears at the sweet offer of this woman, as I insisted that I would be the one driving to her on Tuesday. “Please drive safe on Tuesday,” she told me after I convinced her that I, not her, would be the one driving.
Some might argue that no matter which way I vote, it won’t change anything. Idaho is one of the most weighted states on the political spectrum. But that doesn’t matter to me. This country and my family have fought to allow me this right, and I will honor that.
So on Tuesday, I will bribe my 5-year-old with fast food and movies in the car and drive 2 hours to cast the most important ballot. Mine.
But I do still hope there’s a farmer and some cookies.
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