I voted for the first time in 1968 when the voting age was still 21. I lived in a small town (9,000+ people) in the Missouri Bootheel. There was no voter registration. You didn’t even have to go to an assigned polling place (there were several). In fact, I wasn’t yet 21, but I knew that state law allowed that if I would be 21 by the general election in November, I was eligible to vote in the primary in August.
My state, county and town were solidly Democrat at the time. The winner of the primary was the winner of the election. (Missouri had no presidential primary until decades later).
I went to vote with my parents, who decided on this momentous occasion that we would vote at the county courthouse. My parents were greeted by name, and my father introduced me as a first-time voter. I don’t remember having to produce any ID or documentation. There was no book of registered voters to look up our name or for us to sign that we voted.
We were handed our paper ballots and we went to a standing-height table and filled them out. We stood side-by-side and consulted each other about who to vote for. No voting booths, no provision of privacy, no voting machines.
I was kind of surprised by the lack of voting machines, because the local high school had been conducting student council elections using voting booth machines for about 8 years. It was a self-contained booth like a phone booth. When you sat down and moved the lever from right to left, the curtain closed and the mechanical tabs were set. You pushed down a tab for your choice for each office or proposition. When you were finished, you moved the lever back to its original position, the votes were recorded and the curtain opened. The county eventually used those machines for a long time.
For the November election in 1968, I filled out a form to vote by mail. The ballot had to be notarized, and the student dean’s office at my college announced that staff would be available to notarize vote-by-mail ballots. So I voted in a crowded office, signed the ballot, had my signature notarized and mailed it.
My candidate for governor and all state and local offices won. My candidate for president, Hubert Humphrey, did not. I woke up the day after the election to the prospect of Richard Nixon as president.
I registered to vote in St. Louis two years later at a booth set up in a shopping mall by some union folks. I have not missed an election since. I have voted in every presidential, mid-term, state and local election, including for school boards and tax measures and bond issues.
I voted against Nixon again four years later, and cheered on the Watergate Senate investigation. I wasn’t able to obtain a bumper sticker that said “Don’t blame me — I voted for McGovern,” but I would have posted it with pride.
Nixon resigned a few weeks before my first child was born. I recorded in her baby book that she was born into a new era, when crooked politicians could be forced from office. I am still hopeful that a blue wave this election could lead to Trump’s impeachment.
I do not understand anyone’s argument defending their decision not to vote. I do not accept anyone’s argument that Trump is in office because of my generation. I didn’t vote for him and I don’t know many my age who did. If you don’t vote or if you don’t encourage your age cohorts to vote, you have no business pointing fingers at folks who do.
VOTE TODAY AND EVERY ELECTION AFTER THIS ONE.