HISTORIC AND HOLY

Dear Spike:

I usually vote in the mornings. Your mother usually votes in the afternoons. And often when she comes home she shakes her head and mutters something about how I once again made such an indelible impression on the little old bitties who volunteer at the polls.

“They just loooove you there,” she says, “I sign my name on the register and they just squeal. ‘Oooooh!’ they say. ‘We had another person by that name in here this morning. Was that your husband?’”

She thinks I flirt with the blue hairs. Maybe she’s right. I have been known to wink at the occasional octogenarian.

But do you know why I think they remember me? Really? Because I smile.

Ear to ear.

Every time.

I believe that voting is a sacred ritual. Like Holy Communion, the Hajj and the Seventh-Inning Stretch of a close ball game. And while it’s not popular to say such things these days, I believe that democracy is a gift from God.

Of course, I’m pretty sure communism was a gift from God also. And the the Black Plague. And Cheetos.

Sometimes God hits the mark. Sometimes She misses.

I’m not sure what She was thinking on Oct. 15, 2005, when Iraq’s citizens went to the polls to choose a new constitution. For the most part, Iraqis vote the way they’re told to by their tribal and religious leaders. So in truth, what I witnessed in Iraq on that day was little more than a religious census.

Still, it felt special. And historic. And holy.

I was just outside of the city of Najaf — close enough to see the tapered golden dome and two soaring minarets of the Imam Ali Shrine rising up into the polluted haze above the city. At a rundown village schoolhouse on the city’s west side, I walked along with a proud poll worker (a local teacher, I don’t think they have a League of Women Voters there) as he proudly showed off the box of ballots, the purple ink with which volunteers marked voters’ index fingers — and one brand new, baby blue, perforated cardboard privacy screen.

At that moment, a tall man with a scar on his face walked in, signed his name on a clipboard, picked up a ballot and walked toward the cardboard booth.

“Come around here so you can watch him vote,” the polling worker instructed through an interpreter as he followed behind the would-be voter.

I paused, frozen between what my journalistic sensibilities told be was a really nifty opportunity to watch history unfold and what my western democratic civilities tell me is a clear violation of a very hallowed privacy.

“Come, come,” the polling worker said as he watched from over the voter’s shoulder. “You’ll miss seeing who he chooses!”

Ultimately, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the guy cast his vote. And I tried — albeit unsuccessfully — to explain why to the poll worker. Voting is, after all, a sacred ritual, if only just to me.

Winston Churchill once quipped that democracy is worst form of government, “except for all the others.”

I’m not completely convinced that’s true. Nonetheless, it has been years since I missed an opportunity to vote.

I hope you’ll make a similar effort to be part of your government, if only in the small way of making it to the polls, each election day, with a smile on your face.

Ear to ear.

Every time.

Love,
dad