I wanted to post a message about the recent election in the US. Now this is not about who won or lost. That isn't nearly as important as something else that I noticed.
PEOPLE SHOWED UP TO VOTE.
I don't mean just a few people. I mean - there were LOTS of people. I live in a small county, and I have never had to wait to vote before. On Tuesday, I waited in a line for over 30 minutes. That's nothing compared to the many places around my country that had 3,4, 8 or more hour waits.
As I stood there in that school gym, looking at the line that snaked around the room, all of the people standing there, quietly chatting with a neighbor or friend that they hadn't seen in a while, it just amazed me almost to the point of tears. My 7 year old son was with me, and he was asking who the people were voting for, and when I explained to him that it didn't matter, as long as they voted, it opened the door for an interesting and animated conversation with the strangers around us. Some were voting for the same person 'we' were, some were not. But at that moment, we were not separated by party lines. We were not standing on opposite sides of any issue. We were just people, standing there in line in a middle school gymnasium, waiting to cast our votes and make our voices heard, happy to be able to be a small part in the process. It was a truly unique and humbling experience.
As for the results... while anxiously awaiting the final tallies from many states, I heard one of the newsies talking about the Wisconsin results. Most of the precincts had been counted already, but the ones that hadn't were mostly from a major city. This major city had a small but vey dedicated group of Kerry supporters that had reached MANY people, and could very well be the reason that Kerry might take that state. Now I have to tell you, when I heard that newsie, I just got a huge grin on my face. It didn't matter which person won overall at that point. What was truly awesome was that a small group of people could make that much of a difference. WAY TO GO!!!
