Voting

I turned 21 in August of 1972 and voted in my first presidential election that November. I thought I was voting as part of a massive wave of young people opposed to the Vietnam War. I had high hopes that we would vote out President Richard Nixon, elected in 1968, for failing to fulfill his promise to bring that war to the end. For the first time in U.S. history the voice of young men drafted and sent to serve in Southeast Asia would be heard from the voting booth.

On July 1, 1971 we passed the 26th Amendment to the constitution that prohibited any state from denying any U.S. citizens older than 18 the right to vote. Passage of that amendment was one of the wins for the anti-war movement. Soon to follow was ending the draft in 1973. It has never been reactivated. Though the Selective Service Commission remains, conscription of citizens into the armed forces is a dead-end political issue, deservedly so I think.

With that first vote I felt part of something. I voted for Democrat George McGovern, Senator from South Dakota. I remember how good it felt to have a say in a national decision, to go on record for the future. I saw that election as a choice between peace and continued war. I had demonstrated against America’s war in southeast Asia that had then killed, senselessly it seemed to me, over 55,000 Americans of my generation. But now I could also cast my vote against it. When I marked my ballot in the booth, I was carrying out a long-held wish to be part of changing my country.

McGovern lost in a landslide. Nixon won 60.7% of the popular vote and dominated the electoral college 520-17 winning everything but Massachusetts and Washington D.C.. The Democratic Party was in shambles and had been since the 1968 Chicago convention. Plus, the economy was good. The economy? How important was the economy compared to young men dying in war? I had a lot to learn about U.S. politics.

I didn’t realize that in less than two years, on August 8, 1974, President Nixon would resign in the face of certain impeachment and removal from office after the Watergate scandal. His re-election committee broke into Democratic National Headquarters seeking an advantage over the opposing party, and then Nixon and his administration launched an elaborate cover up, all in an election they could have won straight up without any dirty tricks. I was disgusted with my country and its politics.

I hitchhiked to Nogales Mexico in late October 1976, crossed the border, and made my way to Tucson where I regrouped. My return to the states began in Ecuador. In Tucson I washed all my clothes, got some medical attention, and sold my plasma for cash before hitchhiking to my brother’s house in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He was stationed at an Air Force base there.

I arrived the morning of election day, November 2nd. I’d been away from family for a long time. I didn’t know how much I missed them. He and his wife Carola fed me, their two young daughters, my McClure nieces, pumped me for information about traveling, and I took both a hot bath and a long nap. When they went to bed I stayed up and watched the election results.

At 3:30 a.m. NBC declared Jimmy Carter the winner of the White House over Gerald Ford. In the end Carter won 23 states and 297 electoral votes while Ford won 27 states and 240 votes in the Electoral College.  I’d been out of the country for virtually the entire presidential campaign. The only real news I got about the states came from reading Newsweek magazine off newsstands. I read them cover to cover. I hadn’t talked much about politics during my trip. I was busy with other things.

Surprisingly, I became very animated about the election while talking to the money changing guys at the El Salvador border. You know how sometimes you don’t know you feel strongly about something until you hear yourself saying it? That happened on my fast trip back to the U.S. in 1976.

Back then Central American borders were populated in part by guys who changed money at better rates than the banks and currency exchanges. It was a slow day at the border. Several of those independent businessmen were hanging around, their pockets filled with wads of cash from several countries. Their only business investment, aside from cash, were pocket calculators. Low overhead.

They saw me coming. Of all the money they traded they like U.S. dollars best. One of them approached, speaking English.

“You selling dollars? I’ll give you the best rate. You get the most Colons from me.” El Salvador didn’t switch to U.S. dollars as their national currency until 2001. 

I planned to zoom right through El Salvador. I had spent time there on the way down. I was an extremely thrifty traveler in those days, so this guy made very little money off me. He wore a jaunty straw hat, stingy brims my brother called them, and knew English fairly well. As he was counting the wad of Nicaraguan Cordobas and Honduran Lempiras I handed him, along with a $10 bill, he asked me about the upcoming U.S. election, again in English.

“Who is going to win? We’re betting on Ford down here. Keep it all going. Don’t rock the boat.” 

He used our English idioms well. I answered him in Spanish. I knew a lot more words than when I crossed into El Salvador earlier that year, but it was still very basic. I didn’t let that stop me.

“You’re wrong. Ford is a Republican. That is the party of Nixon and Watergate. They let the Vietnam War last longer than it should and too many American men died. Nixon lied to us. All of us. He was a disgrace. In the U.S., the President leads his party. And because Nixon was the Republican leader, the Republicans are done. They can’t win.” 

When your vocabulary is small you tend to say things crudely. As I talked my voice rose. The other money changers came around. One of the others spoke up.

“But nobody knows Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter, who is he?” 

“He’s someone else. He’s a good man with good people around him. In the United States when one party screws up (I didn’t say screw) we give the government to the other party. We’re not stupid. And our votes count.”

“Gerald Ford seems like a good man.”

“He’s a fine guy. But he’s Republican.   Americans have real choices. And we’re going to choose the other party. If you are making bets, bet on Jimmy.”

“But your economy is not that bad.”

“Screw the economy (again, not my word choice). We have bigger problems, like trust, and honesty, and living together in peace.” 

They laughed and talked among themselves. One of them gave me a cigarette. As I smoked, I calmed down. I don’t like to get angry. I hadn’t realized how angry I was. It was time for America to put Vietnam, Nixon, and the whole mess of the 60’s behind us. I was ready to get on with my life. I figured, without knowing for sure, the whole country was ready.

That was the only presidential election in which I didn’t vote. I was 25 then. In my lifetime I had witnessed the assassination of John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson decline to run for re-election as President knowing he was on the wrong side of the Vietnam War, and President Nixon resign the presidency when his own party told him they did not have the votes to prevent his impeachment and removal.

No American president had served a full two terms since Eisenhower’s eight years ended in 1961. Nor would Carter. It was a turbulent time in our country and the American presidency reflected that unrest.

We are in much the same place as 1976. We need to put this presidency behind us and find common ground as a country. We need a leader who is supported by the majority of Americans and not a patchwork of electoral college votes.

I’m ashamed of what this president has done in the name of our country to people unlike himself, of other religions, other races, other countries, and the other political party. I am sick of hearing about Democratic and Republican cities, blue states and red states. We’re Americans together. We need to care for each other, not tear ourselves further apart.

I cast my vote early last week. It was the 12th time I voted for an American President. I would have voted for Carter if I had been in the country sooner. Of all those thirteen opportunities to be part of the election process, I think this election is the most important in my lifetime.

I’ll be working as an election judge at Ottawa Precinct 12 at the Lion’s Club, my home precinct. If you don’t vote prior to Tuesday November 3 there will be a polling place near you that will be open from 6:00 a.m. to 7 p.m.. I had election judge training last night. 

They have done a lot to make both voters and volunteers at the polls safe from the virus. If you want to vote and are unregistered go to your local precinct. You can register and vote on the same day provided you have two forms of ID that signify your name and address.

If you go there, you will be served by people in your community. Voting is controlled by local county government officials who put the process in the hands of regular people like you and me. You may recognize them. They are most likely your neighbors. 

Having worked every election since 2012, I can tell you that the people working at your polling place are your guarantee that our election process is fair and orderly. We both watch and help each other. Free and fair elections are a wonderful gift to any country. In the United States we have such elections. They are the backbone of our democracy. We cannot let them be compromised. Please vote. Take it seriously. Make your voice be heard.

Whatever the outcome we can make it to the next election it if we stay together as a country.