A love letter to Election Day
For a long time, I thought I would be a political reporter. It's what I trained and interned for. In the end, my own political feelings got in the way — I didn't feel that I could fairly and dispassionately cover something that was so deeply important to me. For those wondering about my political leanings, well, I'm a 20-something liberal arts-educated female who donates to NPR, so ...
But even though I didn't end up working in politics every day, nothing makes me happier than the trappings of our country's democracy. Except these things. Seriously, it's the best. It makes me want to chant "U!S!A! U!S!A!" all the time, forever, until I am dead.
(Originally published Nov. 7, 2010)
It's just before 11 a.m., on Election Day, and the cars are backed up for blocks, with windows rolled down and big white envelopes held out like flags.
At the drive-through ballot drop-off at the Marion County Courthouse, Gary and Dee are the ones who make participatory democracy as convenient as picking up an Oreo Blizzard.
They're both dressed in that Oregonian uniform of dark pants, sensible brown shoes and a windbreaker that is, in this case, lime green and bears the name of the security company they work for. They have a small white tent covering the ballots, but they themselves are constantly walking out to cars or pedestrians.
"Thank you" constitutes maybe 90 percent of the words spoken. Dee and Gary thank people as they check to make sure ballots have been signed, and in return, the drivers thank them for standing out in the cold. No one honks, and everyone is polite. Over the course of an hour, Gary and Dee accept hundreds of ballots, which come to rest inside giant padlocked plastic tubs.
Inside each of those envelopes is someone's opinion on what our country should do and who Americans should be. The slips of paper represent hours of thought.
Looking at the envelopes, I think of voters pouring over election booklets and listening to the television and looking inside. It's no wonder, when people walk with their ballots, some hunch over them protectively, guarding their choices against wind and rain.
The cars slowly pass through. A pickup truck with farm equipment in the back. A silvery BMW. A tow truck. A Subaru whose engine sputters and threatens to quit. An Escalade with a toddler who hands the ballot through the back window after a prompt from his dad. Everyone gets exactly the same amount of say.
This is the people's only chance to really make their voices heard. Lawn signs don't vote. Calls to radio stations aren't sworn in to office. It's just that one small act of drawing in those arrows that counts in the end.
Now it's 7:50 p.m. in the newsroom, the polls are about to close and everyone has an anxious, excited air. In this way, too, election night is the great leveler: Across the country, from the New York Times to rural weeklies, reporters are crunching numbers, calling county clerks, eating pizza, guzzling soda and slowly getting fat.
Finally 8 p.m. hits, and we start frantically reloading web pages and waiting for the results. Around the state, volunteers are packed into courthouses, tabulating the vote, playing their part in the process. I think of this and try not to get annoyed that some of the tallies still aren't up.
When the results finally pop up, teams of two input them into our website, reading the numbers aloud to one another and checking each one. Then it's time to refresh, refresh, refresh the page and wait until there are more.
It's 10 p.m., and I'm thinking about the candidates, gathered at parties either jubilant or somber. Most of them know, by now, whether they have a job or whether it's time to start considering other options. It must take a lot to be a candidate — to say that you have a vision, a plan, an ability and then ask people to choose you. It takes either hubris or passion, hopefully more of the latter.
I think of the campaign staffers, exhausted after months of writing press releases, knocking on doors and bearing all the indignities of the election grind. Their job fortunes, too, rise and fall on the decisions of people they will likely never meet.
And I think about how what happens will change things. Each election is a small point that the course of our country pivots around, if only incrementally. We won't know until years from now the full meaning of what happened this Election Day, and it's a privilege to be involved, no matter how tangentially, while it's actually unfolding.
At this rate, it looks like the newsroom won't be emptying until well after midnight. Our web editor won't leave until 6:45 in the morning, but none of this matters because Election Day is the best day of the year.
K. Williams Brown is the entertainment reporter for the Statesman Journal. She wishes election day and Halloween could be combined into 24 hours of pure perfection.
But even though I didn't end up working in politics every day, nothing makes me happier than the trappings of our country's democracy. Except these things. Seriously, it's the best. It makes me want to chant "U!S!A! U!S!A!" all the time, forever, until I am dead.
(Originally published Nov. 7, 2010)
It's just before 11 a.m., on Election Day, and the cars are backed up for blocks, with windows rolled down and big white envelopes held out like flags.
At the drive-through ballot drop-off at the Marion County Courthouse, Gary and Dee are the ones who make participatory democracy as convenient as picking up an Oreo Blizzard.
They're both dressed in that Oregonian uniform of dark pants, sensible brown shoes and a windbreaker that is, in this case, lime green and bears the name of the security company they work for. They have a small white tent covering the ballots, but they themselves are constantly walking out to cars or pedestrians.
"Thank you" constitutes maybe 90 percent of the words spoken. Dee and Gary thank people as they check to make sure ballots have been signed, and in return, the drivers thank them for standing out in the cold. No one honks, and everyone is polite. Over the course of an hour, Gary and Dee accept hundreds of ballots, which come to rest inside giant padlocked plastic tubs.
Inside each of those envelopes is someone's opinion on what our country should do and who Americans should be. The slips of paper represent hours of thought.
Looking at the envelopes, I think of voters pouring over election booklets and listening to the television and looking inside. It's no wonder, when people walk with their ballots, some hunch over them protectively, guarding their choices against wind and rain.
The cars slowly pass through. A pickup truck with farm equipment in the back. A silvery BMW. A tow truck. A Subaru whose engine sputters and threatens to quit. An Escalade with a toddler who hands the ballot through the back window after a prompt from his dad. Everyone gets exactly the same amount of say.
This is the people's only chance to really make their voices heard. Lawn signs don't vote. Calls to radio stations aren't sworn in to office. It's just that one small act of drawing in those arrows that counts in the end.
Now it's 7:50 p.m. in the newsroom, the polls are about to close and everyone has an anxious, excited air. In this way, too, election night is the great leveler: Across the country, from the New York Times to rural weeklies, reporters are crunching numbers, calling county clerks, eating pizza, guzzling soda and slowly getting fat.
Finally 8 p.m. hits, and we start frantically reloading web pages and waiting for the results. Around the state, volunteers are packed into courthouses, tabulating the vote, playing their part in the process. I think of this and try not to get annoyed that some of the tallies still aren't up.
When the results finally pop up, teams of two input them into our website, reading the numbers aloud to one another and checking each one. Then it's time to refresh, refresh, refresh the page and wait until there are more.
It's 10 p.m., and I'm thinking about the candidates, gathered at parties either jubilant or somber. Most of them know, by now, whether they have a job or whether it's time to start considering other options. It must take a lot to be a candidate — to say that you have a vision, a plan, an ability and then ask people to choose you. It takes either hubris or passion, hopefully more of the latter.
I think of the campaign staffers, exhausted after months of writing press releases, knocking on doors and bearing all the indignities of the election grind. Their job fortunes, too, rise and fall on the decisions of people they will likely never meet.
And I think about how what happens will change things. Each election is a small point that the course of our country pivots around, if only incrementally. We won't know until years from now the full meaning of what happened this Election Day, and it's a privilege to be involved, no matter how tangentially, while it's actually unfolding.
At this rate, it looks like the newsroom won't be emptying until well after midnight. Our web editor won't leave until 6:45 in the morning, but none of this matters because Election Day is the best day of the year.
K. Williams Brown is the entertainment reporter for the Statesman Journal. She wishes election day and Halloween could be combined into 24 hours of pure perfection.