We're Coming Up on (Re)Election Day

The title is with apologies to Duran Duran offshoot, Arcaida

Call me a dork, I'm sure some people already do, but I feel such a sense of empowerment having the ability to vote. When I was little, my mother would take me into the voting booth with her, and I looked forward to the day I was able to enter the booth by myself and mark those boxes. To this day I vote in every election, both primary and regular, even if there is only one candidate for my party.

When I was a senior in high school, one of the assignments for my Theology class was to register to vote if you turned 18 during senior year. That was one assignment I had no trouble completing. In fact, and I distinctly remember this, I was really mad that my birthday came exactly one week after the election, making me ineligible to vote in the election that November. A few months after that, I helped to work at the polls for a colleague of my father’s who was running for office, in spite of the fact that he was a member of the opposite party I was registered for. I just loved having an opportunity to be involved with the electoral system.

My political ideals fall out of step with my father’s, a life-long Republican, most of the time. In fact, he once referred to me as a Deamon-crat to one of his friends. Some people would say that the fact I am the polar opposite to my father politically is obviously a sign of rebellion. I would argue against that. It is because my father raised me to think for myself that I have the beliefs that I do. I hope that my father is proud of the fact that he raised a daughter who can think for herself, even if it leads to some lively if not uncomfortable discussions at the dinner table. Even if the candidate I vote for doesn’t get elected, I know that at the end of the day, I participated and didn’t stand on the sidelines.

One thing I think that my father and I both agree on is that it is both a privilege and an obligation of each American to vote on Election Day, regardless of their political beliefs. Dad and I don’t agree on who may be in office, but we can both rest assured that we actively participated in our political process.

Call me a dork, but in this case, it’s a badge I wear proudly.