Voting in a Democracy is a Learned Experience

With just days to go before what might be the most polarized election in our lifetimes, it’s hard to focus on anything else.

By now a huge percentage of voters will have already submitted their completed ballots by voting absentee now that you don’t need a fake excuse anymore.

With the huge emphasis on this year’s vote, I thought back on how I learned about voting. Voting, we were told, was a basic part of a democracy and a right that was to be taken seriously. And every election seemed like it was the most important ever. We even practiced voting right in class. It was mostly a popularity contest. Aren’t they all?

But we did witness some of the voting process and could see the importance of it just by watching voters stream in and out of Colvill School on election days. Vote Here signs were posted at the school entrances near the Fallout Shelter signs.

The voting booths looked like standing tents, with canvas sides and flaps for the entrance. The canvas was striped in red, white and blue. The booths were usually set up in the library which meant that it was off limits to students on those days.

Voting Early

We learned that absentee voting was an option for those who would be unavailable on election day. You know, important reasons like going fishing in Canada. This year, that might be a good place to be.

Because of COVID, absentee voting has been replaced by “early voting.” You don’t need a reason to vote early. So, many do. They’re tired of the vitriol and simply want to be done with it.

Early voting was a contentious subject not long ago, until all sides figured out how to use it to their advantage. Now every one of them implores us with “vote early” which triggers Catherine or me to finish the old Chicago phrase with “and often.”

By the time I first voted, hand counting ballots had been replaced by technology. It was a faster and more accurate way to get the results. Hand counting ballots has been shown to be less accurate than by machine, as much as eight percent in one study. The electronic tabulating machines are apparently accurate to .05%.

Punch cards were in use when I first voted. It required careful aim. Remember the “hanging chads” of the 2000 election? Eventually we started using the fill-in-the-circle ballots that we still use. I understood that process, having experienced years of “Iowa tests.”

These machines are basically computers. They take input (completed ballots) and produce output (vote counts). They are subjected to a variety of diagnostic procedures but, of course, anything could happen. It’s just that outright hacking seems like it would take a lot of work and luck.

The county collects all the results and, amid its many procedural steps, sends them on to the Secretary of State. This can often be an all-night process in a close election or if there are delays receiving the ballots from around the county.

Getting Results

There was a time when county staff updated tallies on a blackboard for interested spectators such as the newspaper, radio, candidates and their supporters. Residents listened intently to KCUE radio the next morning for the overnight results. In the afternoon we got the final results in the Daily Republican Eagle. There was no internet like today where you can see counts as they get updated overnight.

My mom often worked at the polls, probably as much to get a day away from being a homemaker as the money she would earn. On those days, I knew Dad would be boiling weiners for supper. Those were long days for her, so she was worn out by the time she got home, long after I had gone to bed.

I remember her saying that there were very strict voting rules they had to follow. Everything had to match up – number of voters and ballots. Every scrap of paper had to be accounted for, even spoiled ballots. I remember one election when the count was off and they scrambled for a long time figuring it out.

There will undoubtedly be changes to the election process aimed at security and ease of voting. It wasn’t that long ago that mail-in or drop-off voting was unheard of. Ranked choice voting is being implemented for some elections. It seems conceivable that we’ll be able to vote directly from our computers or smartphones some day if a highly secure method is developed and accepted.

Democracy is hard. Elections can be messy. Voting should not be. The steps might seem complex but they are part of the checks and balances that ensure a fair election.

There’s one way to show your confidence in the process and gratitude to the state’s 30,000 election judges.

Wear your “I Voted” sticker.