photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
November 3, 2020. Presidential election day during the COVID-19 quarantine. I was working as a voting machine operator at a polling station. The whole day was brutal. We’d been so busy for the first several hours that I had forgotten to drink and had become shaky. It was evening now, I was hydrated, and there was thankfully, finally, a lull.
A young man was looking at the papers laid out on the table near the entrance. He was closely scanning all those legal documents required to be there, but no one actually reads.
“Can I help you?” I asked through my mask.
He mumbled something I couldn’t understand. He saw my confusion: my squinted eyes, tilted head. Then he frowned, pulled out his cell phone, tapped it and held it up, screen to me.
“I’m deaf,” it read.
I pulled out my phone and typed back, held it to him.
“What can I do for you?”
He typed a little, held up his screen.
“Trump.” Was all it said.
You fool, I wanted to say. He’s a conman. A criminal. An incompetent. He’s going to destroy the awesome but fragile ideals of the USA. Don’t you know your history? Hitler started as a laughingstock and ended as mass murderer. Trump is following the same playbook. Can’t you see it?
That’s what I wanted to say, but that was not my job. This man was a voter, in need of help exercising his right to choose our president. My job, as a poll worker, was to be part of the team that helped him do that. I was there to defend his right to choose, even as he chose a candidate against the concept of choosing.
I did my job. I typed on my cell phone and he on his. We communicated with texts in person. With masks and protective gloves, it was difficult going, but I did it to the best of my ability.
That was one of the more interesting anecdotes from a long day of routine.
Before, during and after election day, I questioned my actions with genuine fear. Not with the deaf man, but the whole adventure. By helping people vote Trump, I would be assisting them in making a foolish choice. I had been reading history books about the rise of tyranny. Would I be one of the people that history scorns? One who had too much faith in the rules to stop a growing menace? One who had misplaced faith in humanity?
History teaches that the tyrant’s playbook is always the same. Stoke anger with non-stop complaining (but never do anything to remedy the grievances.) Surround yourself with amoral jerks who care only about power. Use half-truths: call out the establishment as corrupt while dismissing evidence of your far-worse corruption. Like many scams, the Trump 2020 candidacy was tired, old news, and effective.
I could have refused to work at the poll. Said no, I’m not helping people elect a dictator. But then I’d also be refusing to help people elect his opponent, Biden. My best countermove to the tyrant playbook was to help people vote. Then I’d pray — there wasn’t much more I could do — that enough people made the wise choice.
Sidebar: I feel the need to say that not all people who voted for Trump are cruel moron predators like him. The reasons people cast a vote are many. Many don’t pay attention to politics, or they always vote the same party, or their vision is only about themselves, or they want to shake the establishment. On and on. There is a percentage of Trump voters who match his vileness. The others are just making a terrible choice.
Yes, I helped people select a wannabe dictator. But I helped people dump him, too. More than that, I protected people’s right to choose. That, I finally realized, is the difference between an American patriot and an American fascist. We patriots support the right to choose. Fascists support it only when they win. Once I came to that idea, I felt I had done the right thing, even if the election had gone to dictator-wannabe Trump.
After his loss, as history predicts, Trump and many of his voters cried that their rights were stolen. That charge was and remains incorrect. Those who voted for him had exercised their right, I had been a small part of helping them do it. They simply lost the contest. Citizens have a right to a vote — not a right to win. And if you doubt the process? Or the fairness? I say fine. Take it to court. If you have a case based on evidence, you will (unlike Trump) win more than one out of sixty-two cases. (Source.)
You can argue about the imperfections of our voting system. I’d agree. It’s “winner takes all,” the electoral college doesn’t always match the majority, etc. But the idea of democracy in general is beautiful. It’s a sliver of our existence that’s an improvement on the ancient (and current) ethos that “might makes right.” It’s the right to have a say in our civilization, the right to choose our civic representatives.
I never thought I would take pride in being a “patriot.” So many who call themselves that care more for America’s symbols than its ideals and less for its obligations. But I guess I’m a patriot after all. Because I support the freedom to choose.
Democracy is boring, tedious, frustrating work. It’s hard to help process a vote for someone when you know they’re voting against who or what you want. The stark choice has been noted before: protect rights for all or everyone loses them. Even if — and this always hurts my brain — people would choose someone who would abolish the right to choose. You can’t protect rights for some and have a decent country.
So be sure to use your rights because fools and fascists will be using theirs. Vote.
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