Yesterday, because I was a stay at home mom, I was able to do something, I do quite regularly. Time my trip to the polls to coincide to the period that happens between the morning rush and the lunchtime rush.
I can do that.
But most people cannot.
Most people are obligated to be at work or to pick up their kids at certain times, and have a limited window of opportunity to vote.
I know that some will say, "Yea, but early voting, absentee ballot, blah blah blah". Sure, it's an option if people think about it.
Most people go through their daily lives on a schedule that eventually becomes also, habitual. And so their minds do not stretch beyond that habitual schedule. And so they don't remember to vote early or to get an absentee ballot, if that is--they remember to register to vote at all.
This is why so many of you have to canvas neighborhoods, and work to get people registered, who otherwise might not make themselves eligible to vote at all.
I am so glad this cycle is over, but I can look forward to the next just as easy. When you get old, 4 years is a blink of an eye.
What do I see, when I vote during normal working hours? Mostly Older White Voters.
It's not a bad thing, I am glad they are voting, but the reason that so many younger people are absent, and so many minorities are absent is that they are working. And many of those people do not get significant time off to vote, especially when it comes to lines at the polls that wrap around the buildings and push out into the parking lots--several hundred people deep.
You get 30 minutes to an hour for lunch. That is the time many people get to vote. And lunch happens between 11:00 pm and 1:00 pm.
Work lets out in shifts:
Between 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm.
What that means in densely populated areas is that everyone is off trying to vote at the same time, and in Oklahoma, the polls are only open from 7:00 am to 7: 00 pm. Those hours equal the time that everyone is on their way to work, or just getting off of work.
16 years ago, I wasn't given time off during the work day to vote in a presidential election. I was a commuter, who worked about 45 minutes away from my place of residence. And my boss at that time, who wasn't a local, was absolutely convinced [or so this person told me] that the polls would be open til 9 or midnight or something.
So even if I was given a long lunch, it would have been an inadequate amount of time given the drive time involved to get to my polling station to vote. And since this boss did not let me off until 7:00 pm, I was unable to cast my ballot, because the polls were already closed.
This happens more often than people realize.
Yesterday I talked to another parent, and this happened to them. They picked up their smart-phone and showed me a clip of a video they took of the line inside their polling station. They went twice, and twice they ran out of time and had to meet other obligations before they could make it through the line to vote. The line they showed me--2 lines actually, was several hundred people deep and wound around inside of a building.
When you are a blue collar person, getting time off for anything other than funerals, or giving birth or medical emergencies is a real hassle. Even if we all took a sick day to vote, everyone would know what was happening and that would cause other problems.
We--meaning the people, need to push to make our days to vote in major elections Holidays, where everything shuts down and all eligible voters have the opportunity to cast their ballot without suffering financial hardships or creating other problems at their place of work.
It is exactly these scheduling conflicts that so affect the voter demographics, and cut many younger, and minority voters out of the picture.
I am very glad that Obama won, and that Romney did not. I cannot imaging the insanity that would occur had the opposite transpired. To me, limiting voting to during what are essentially working hours and not ensuring that everyone gets that day off to vote, is another form of voter suppression that targets blue collar, working poor, minorities, and the younger voters. I would like to help change that.