I've been an election clerk in my precinct for four years now, and it's really fun and only occasionally annoying--like the time I had to vote THREE TIMES on behalf of blind voters for a gay marriage ban. That one was nauseating.
But today, I had what is undoubtedly my favorite election clerk moment.
An elderly gentleman came into our North Dallas (heavily Republican) polling place this morning and said he needed a clerk to come to the car with a ballot so his disabled wife could vote. So we trudged out there, ballot in hand. She was an elderly white woman, this is a heavily Republican precinct, so I figured she was a slam dunk McCain voter. Fair enough. I'm used to it.
Well, she could barely hold her pen, but she was able to sign her name on the sign-in sheet. Then, she took her ballot, very deliberately bubbled in Barack Obama's name, and handed the ballot back to the election judge. "I'm done," she said.
I have no idea how tonight will go, but when an elderly white woman in the most Republican state in the world can go to that much trouble to vote for a skinny black kid with a funny name--well, sometimes I'm just proud to be an American.