For this primary election I decided to cast my vote in person after voting by mail during the last few years dominated by the pandemic.
Since I live in California, where every active, registered voter receives a mail-in ballot, I had many convenient options. I could mail my ballot or drop it off in a secure drop box. You could go to one of hundreds of voting centers throughout Los Angeles County up to 11 days before Election Day, or as little as a month before if you went to the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk headquarters in Norwalk.
I had a few extra minutes on the way home after taking my daughter to her gym class on Saturday afternoon, so I decided to stop by a voting center in a local park. Colorful signs guided me from a parking lot to a community center building, where there were rows and rows of ballot marking devices. There were few other voters there and the operation was well staffed with enthusiastic and helpful poll workers.
These amenities would not be extraordinary, if not for the fact that they are denied to so many people in states where politicians have passed laws and restrictions that make it difficult for people to vote.. So, at a time when American democracy is under attack on multiple fronts, I felt some pride in living in a state that tries to make it easier for citizens to fulfill their most basic civic duty.
I was among more than 300,000 people in Los Angeles County, or about a third of voters, who cast their ballots at a voting center, rather than by mail, according to election night data County. And my experience was slick and hassle-free.
It only took me a few minutes to vote and get on with my day. There were no lines. No cumbersome identification requirements or difficult-to-use machines. After feeding my ballot into the machine, I was pointed to a red carpet-style background banner for a post-voting photo or selfie, if desired. I stuck my “I Voted” sticker on my shirt and a poll worker took a photo of me and my daughter.
As I left, I thanked the poll workers for their service. Many of them are community members who earn only $100 a day. Poll workers are the lifeblood of our democracy and have faced increased harassment, threats and intimidation due to false allegations of election fraud and conspiracies by Donald Trump and other Republicans.
But with so many ways to vote, it's embarrassing to see such low turnout. Los Angeles County had just 16% of registered voters as of Wednesday morning, although the final turnout figure will increase when all mail-in ballots are counted. At a time when the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is an election denier and an insurrectionist who has little respect for our most basic democratic norms, we should be sounding the alarm about the future. And we should exercise our power as voters and use the vote to defend our democracy from those who conspire to restrict it.
No one should take our democracy for granted. Voting rights are precious and fragile, and like the muscles in our bodies, they atrophy unless we exercise them.
