In California the laws have changed to allow for voting in primaries and general elections to take place over a series of ten days leading up to the normal "voting Tuesday."
In addition to the extended voting period, many of the voting sites have been closed and consolidated into these "centers," and, the kicker for this particular primary, new technological devices have been implemented.
So, a consolidation of voting sites, new tech, and a public that ignored the calls to vote early, meant crazy lines and wait times.
I got home from work on Corrie's first day with both kids and no other help, and, upon seeing her face and asking how it went, she simply said, "Well, everyone's still alive." I told her that that counts as a success, then strapped the baby girl to my chest, grabbed the boy's wrist, and took off for the polling place.
Around 5 pm, and the line was significant:
Cass and I and Cam queued. And stood, and chatted, and Cass ran around, and tried to climb on the wall next to where we stood ("Daddy, my claws don't work," he said about his fingernails.). He ran to curb and back at least seventy times. He played at the base of a shade-providing ficus. He made friends with a dude collecting signatures to add a tax to sports betting.
At one point it seemed like he was asking where the water was inside. Like a water fountain? No, the water. For the boat. You know, for the boating.
It took an extra minute or two in real time to realize that the entire time he was under the impression we were going to go ride a BOAT, or, as a verb, go BOATING. No, no, son, my bad, we're going to go VOTE, vuh-vuh-vote, with a V. See, the water's that way a few blocks...inside that building are voting machines...not boats.
At least that was met with a shrug and enthused "okay."
And that was in the first hour.
I sent that message to my co-workers on our WhatsApp channel. That was the first of the phone he really saw as we waited. Notice the carrier...Camille's head is visible in the photo itself, if you tap on it, but not there.
The second hour Cass fell in love with the girl behind us in line. She was waiting with her brother, maybe, and seemed like a nice kid. I mentioned that the only time in all my years of voting the only time I ever saw lines like this was in Bed Stuy in 2008, when historic turnouts for Obama flooded polling places.
She said she remembers it well, seeing as how she was in SECOND GRADE at the time and it was a big moment in their class. (Sigh) She's out here voting, and that's a great sign.
She was great with Cass, even after my patience started growing thin with his constant interrupting their conversation.
Eventually Camille woke and was hungry, and Corrie came to get her, and Cass was growing quite restless. I told her to take him home as well, but he wanted to stay. Corrie called him over and talked to him quietly in stern tones, and he came over and was mellow the rest of the way.
I had Cass help me with the touch screen, which he was into (of course). As we left, passing the line as we headed out the door, Cass, smiling and cheerful and hollering, "Yay! We did it! We did it!" was a beautiful moment for everyone in line, the exuberance of a little kid who got a very close up view of performing civic duties.
When I got home and told Corrie that I hadn't given Cass my phone at all during the 150 minutes we waited, she responded with near disbelief, calling it heroic. Is that going to far?
This having been so-called Super Tuesday and all, we in our apartment had high hopes, but by the end of the night we started to feel a little like the following meme:
Revolution doesn't sound so bad right about now?
Who am I kidding? What people want right now is to be told everything will be fine, that an invisible foe can be kept at bay and their loved ones will be safe and healthy, even when the facts show that that's impossible or impossible to say for sure.
And the anxiety is real. And ongoing. Talk of revolution may prove too much at this early juncture...
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