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Nov

7

Octogenarian goes from surgery to polls, had never voted before


The following description was written by a local lawyer who took the day off to be a poll observer on Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

I want to share with you all something that epitomizes what this election has done for our country.

I was a poll observer this Tuesday, stationed at Max Hayes High School on the near west side of Cleveland.  My main duty was to assure that everyone was able to exercise her or his right to vote.  However, the effort I expended was minor as compared to that of one of the voters, showing an inspiring display of pride and dedication.

Around 12:30 in the afternoon, a young woman walked into the polling place.  The Judges asked her what I had previously thought to be a silly question, “Are you here to vote?”  She replied “No.  I was told by the Board of Elections that you could do a car-side vote for someone that can’t come inside.”  The Judges vaguely remembered their training on this issue and eventually, with some persuasion, decided how they could undertake what in their minds was surely a questionable voter tactic.  Two Judges (from opposite parties to be sure) took a clipboard, the poll book, a ballot and a pen out to the car.  What they encountered was far from a voter fraud tactic.

They encountered an 82 year-old black woman.  She had come straight from the hospital, having within the last few hours, just come out of surgery.  She was on her way to a rehabilitation center, driven there by a volunteer from the Department of Aging.  This woman had first-hand experience of all the prejudice, racism, struggles, pain, injury and death that people of color faced securing the right to vote only a few decades ago.  And yet, she had never voted before in her life.  An 82 year-old woman who fought for the right to vote and never did so until she was so unbelievably moved by the prospect of a black man leading this country out of the toughest of economic times into the greatness so rightfully belonging to the United States of America.  Never in her whole life would she have dreamed of the all-to-familiar racial barriers permitting such a choice for all of us. Casting her vote in this election was so important to her that nothing, not even immobilizing surgery, was going to stand in her way.

This truly is an era of change and we are blessed to be witnesses to it.  Let’s do our part.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:14 pm November 7th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Elections, Illness, Ohio, Voting, WH2008, democracy 

Comments

3 Responses to “Octogenarian goes from surgery to polls, had never voted before”

  1. 1 Barga on November 12th, 2008 7:38 pm

    this is why we have mail-in voting

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on November 13th, 2008 9:17 am

    Yes but I have to tell you, for example, that I couldn’t do mail in voting with any confidence because I found out not long before the deadlines got too close that I would be in DC on election day.

    Likewise, I imagine, given that this woman had never voted before, she was probably someone who got registered through a registration program, possibly even that evil old ACORN those terrible people who help people to register to vote – you know, millions of people who exist and do show up and do vote only once.

    And I am guessing that given her health, she was relying on others to help her through the voting process.

    I think mailing in is fantastic and would love to see it expanded. However, I’m pleased to know that the system can accommodate this woman as well.

  3. 3 Barga on November 13th, 2008 9:25 am

    I would have loved for somebody to take her to early voting, when she found out she needed to go into surgery. While the wait might have been longer, she might not have been out in time otherwise. I will assume you are correct on the mail-in part.

    That said, good for her to do this. Every person voting deserves a say, and if you don’t vote, then you don’t deserve that say…

    As a side point, I think that we should move to how they do it in Oregon, where everything is mail-in (or, as far as I know, you can also go vote early, maybe)… They have one of the highest turnouts, and very little voting fraud. It also costs them much, much less

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