Voting then and now...

I had the good fortune to be able to right an injustice that I thought was being heaped on young people by lowering the voting age, where you had young people that were old enough to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for their members of Congress that sent them there.

          ~Birch Bayh

                

This morning Lanny and I got up a little early and headed over to our polling place where we both did our civic duty and voted. We have been bombarded for weeks with political ads on TV from both political parties, and often the races have been almost mean-spirited. There have been accusations and half-truths (or worse) hurled by both sides at one another... till we have been sickened by it. However, it would never dawn on either of us not to vote. It is the most important duty of each citizen, one that must be guarded closely to protect our democracy.

When we went to sign in, there was a young woman right in front of us. She handed over the mandatory photo ID-- in her case, a driver's license. It had a different appearance than Lanny's and mine, and the poll worker commented on it. She pointed out that it was different because she was not yet 21. This made me realize that this must be the first time this young woman was going to vote for President of the United States. "Good for her!" I thought. And then my mind wandered back to the first time I voted for President...

It was in 1972. I was a junior at the University of Michigan. The voting age had just been dropped to 18 from 21, so I was able to vote. It was also the first time that students were allowed to register and vote in the area where they lived at school, rather than at the place where they had lived with their parents. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, there were suddenly 40,000 more people who were deemed eligible to vote in 1972, and the polls were not prepared.

Ann Arbor, and indeed all of America, was a very different place back in 1972. The big issue that year was the Vietnam War. Sharply divided about this issue, Richard Nixon was running as the incumbant. George McGovern was the Democratic candidate who ran on an anti-war platform. He was considered a pretty extreme liberal candidate, and had the majority of student votes that year. At the time of the election, the Watergate scandal had occurred but was not yet the big issue that it would go on to become.  Ann Arbor, having all those students, was a hotbed of antiwar activity. And, to add to the intensity of the time, there were actually 2 students running for seats on the City Council. 

To get out the student vote, there were volunteers who drove students to and from the voting locations, which some thought were placed in the most inconvenient locations to discourage students from voting. I was taken to the polls in a Rainbow People's Party multi-colored VW van, along with a half dozen others, by a hippy who was the brother of a local radical left hero, Pun Plamondon (and who was in federal prison at the time of the election!).  When I got there, the line was long. I waited for about 2 hours to have my 2 minutes in the voting booth, the line full of students like myself. And I voted for McGovern... who lost. In fact he lost so bad the only state he carried was Massachusetts. A landslide for Nixon. But, those 2 students running for Ann Arbor City Council won, and served for several years, giving the students access and a voice in the governing of the city in which they lived.

I have voted in many elections since then, but I will always remember that first time. I hope the young woman we saw remembers her experience today. It was certainly not as unusual a setting-- no hippies, no anti-war demonstrators. Just citizens from our local area waiting patiently to express themselves in the voting booth. Having a say in how this wonderful experiment in democracy is going to run for the next four years.  It is a privilege and a duty of all citizens. It is what makes our country the envy of the world. I remember being proud to vote in 1972, and that feeling of pride has only increased over the years. 

 

God Bless the United States of America!!