Adventures in Voting 0

I voted “in-person absentee” on Saturday. It’s a weird thing we have here in Virginia: There is no early voting, but, if you are eligible to vote absentee, you can vote early in person at designated locations as well as by mail (the first vote I cast was a mail-in absentee ballot for Shirley Chisholm). Since I’m working the polls in a precinct other than my own, I was eligible to vote “in-person absentee.”

The polling location was quiet and the poll-workers were nice. They told me that that voting had been steady; they had had about 25 voters by the time I arrived at 12:30 p. m. In idle conversation, I remarked to one that “My father taught me through example that voting is not a right; it is a duty. I can even remember my daddy paying his poll tax so he could vote.”

Some other voter over there said, “It’s a privilege.”

Clearly, she missed the bit about “poll tax.”

I said, “Indeed, there are some who are working to make it a privilege.”

Driving is a privilege. Voting is a duty.

Words fail me.