Why do I vote?
The answer is I really don’t know.
From the standpoint of analysis, I have been voting for so long – every presidential and primary election since I turned 18 – (okay, I may have missed one primary) that I can’t remember why I started in the first place.
My family was not particularly civically engaged when I was growing up. We only went to church occasionally, my parents didn’t join community groups, and they did not get involved in local politics. Except for one thing. They voted. It was a hard-won right of immigrants who had left the oppressive regimes of Eastern Europe and wanted to support their new country. My father voted in every presidential and primary election. My mother did, as well, although she may have missed a few primaries. I don’t ever remember being taken to a polling place with my parents – this would never have occurred to them – but once I turned 18, I couldn’t wait to vote.
My first presidential was the Reagan-Mondale election of 1984; I remember being amazed by the fact that a woman – Geraldine Ferraro -- was running as Vice President – but my energy was tempered by the fact that I couldn’t vote in Westchester County, where I went to school, because my college address was not considered permanent. Hopping on a bus and train to go home and vote was no big deal, unlike it was for Laura Ruch, from Atlanta, who in this Presidential election never received her Ohio absentee ballet. She is going to, according to The New York Times, “…board a plane against her better judgement and fly home to vote in person amid a pandemic.” During the Clinton campaign, I was given an invitation to attend the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. What an experience that was.
When my children were little, my husband and I took them to every primary and presidential election, although I don’t remember them getting I’m a Future Voter stickers – “I definitely didn’t get one of those,” my child just commented. “I would have remembered that! I do remember you or Dad letting me turn the levers.” Then they got engaged: When they turned nine they had a Kids for Kerry fundraiser birthday party in Prospect Park.
So, one way to look at it: voting is just what we did. We didn’t question it. “…if you learn about voting when you’re young you can be a good voter by the time you actually get there,” says Hannah McCarthy, of the Civics 101 podcast. “You could say voting is habit forming” Peter Levine, a professor at Tufts University Tisch College of Civic Engagement, says “…the pattern in America is that people gradually become voters each decade until people get into their 80s. They vote at a higher rate and it seems that people overcome the barriers; they learn how to do it, they tune into some issues and get an idea who they’re going to vote for, and once they do that they’re much more likely to vote again.”
About a year ago I had coffee with a friend, and I told him I was the most politically unengaged person I knew.
“Really?” he asked. “Why do you say that?”
The answer I gave has less to do with being uninvolved than it does with simply being horrified by the events of the past four years. One thing I do know. I am no longer that person. I’ve never been as engaged in an election as I have in this one. The phone calls, the postcards, and being a poll worker this Tuesday. Perhaps I’ve “become” that voter Peter Levine is talking about.
If not now, after all, then when?