I remember as a child accompanying my mother to the voting booth, the curtain motoring closed, and the way she clicked all the little levers for the various candidates, sometimes referring to notes she had made about which person in which race. Although a registered Democrat, her perception of whether or not the candidate was a "good man" (yes "man," it was the 70s) was more important to her than party affiliation. Because of this, I never saw anyone use the "straight ticket" vote, and even thought of it as something people did when they didn't really think too much about voting, the way my mom did. But I still remember being fascinated with that big lever, and what it would be like to pull that puppy, as opposed to all the little clicks of the individual candidate levers.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and now I'm the same age as my mother when she was pregnant with me. Of all things, I've become pretty much a straight ticket voter. I think my mom finds that about as appalling as the fact that I've become a political scientist. However, because I am only "pretty much" a straight ticket voter and I do cross the lines to the other side to support moderate candidates who have strong stands on "my" issues, I rarely use, or even notice the "straight ticket option." Maybe it's that deap-seated, inherited idea about making a choice on each race.
Today, however, I thought about the straight ticket. In this election, I knew that my votes were going to fall down the party line, and that there was a line at the polling place, and that it would be quick and easy to just fill in the one bubble. Then I looked at the ballot. I looked at the section with the straight ticket vote bubbles. In West Virginia we have four parties that qualify: Republican, Mountain, Libertarian, and Democratic. Each party had a symbol next to the name, and an empty bubble to be filled. So, I looked at the ballot. The Libertarians had the Statue of Liberty as their symbol. What's with that? Since when do the Libertarians get the Statue of Liberty? But, you know, I can see it...liberty, Liberty. Fine. The Mountain Party has a graphic of a mountain. Makes sense, mountain, Mountain. The first sign of trouble was the Republican symbol. An eagle. Like the Libertarian symbol, this one left me thinking wha...? What about the elephant? No trunk? Huh? But, you know, I could even believe the eagle. Then, the deciding factor for not voting the "straight ticket" option, I looked at the symbol by the Democratic party bubble. It was a chicken. A CHICKEN?! Who wants to vote a straight chicken ticket?
Needless to say, I filled in all the individual bubbles. And I'm trying to find out what the heck the chicken thing is all about. I'll let you know if I do.
Posted by binky at November 2, 2004 07:11 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics