They lined-up half a block down the street, forty to fifty people at first, in 35 degree weather well before 8:00am. Parent’s with young children bundled up against the cold, women and men in business suits, in old jeans, in work-out clothes. Hispanic, White, African American, and Asian. No one forced them to show up. No one cut the line. All stood as strangers to each other in a simple, silent procession of cooperation and civic pride.
They came and they waited and then one by one they went inside. All the while the line outside grew longer, the wait half an hour or more. Some held coffee or a paper, but most looked around every time a person who entered came back outside, as if something important had just happened.
On election day everyone who votes is a celebrity, a representative, an agent of change in a social ritual that renews hope, promises a better future and gives an incomparable feeling of freedom. Something important did happen behind those doors. Volunteers donated their time to help forge a more perfect union between citizens and their government. People voted and they were transformed.
And no matter what their beliefs, their race, their religion, education or profession, or how much money they have in their pockets, on this day, in this line, at this moment, they stand equal among their peers – one person, one vote.
Then it’s over, sticker in hand, back out into the cold to go their separate ways. That’s America and that tens of millions of people will voluntarily go out of their way and spend time in civic ritual at polling stations all across this country renews a hope in the experiment of democracy that grows stronger, every vote, every election.
Half time in America is over. It’s decision time. Choose wisely, but choose.