Ballot-box blues: What’s a voter to do?

Every year, when my ballot appears in my mailbox, I feel a little pang of loss. It reminds me that I don’t get to vote in person any more, don’t get to go into the church basement, and chat with the election volunteers, don’t get to find out if the trick for finding my name in the voter list — the second one after all the Andersons — still works, don’t get to watch as the ballot box whooshes my marked ballot back and down into the “vault” in the bottom.

By Carol Ladwig • November 1, 2016 4:55 pm

I miss voting in person, not exactly because of all those things, but those things are the ceremonial trappings of something that really is a big deal, a free and democratic process that not everyone on this planet has the privilege to participate in.

This year, when I saw my ballot in the mail, I felt a different, much bigger pang.

Could be it was fear for whatever happens next in this — whatever the outcome may be — historic presidential election.

Maybe it was worry that no matter who I cast my vote for, that person would turn out to be just as dishonest, disloyal and as undeserving as the person I voted against.

Wait, that’s it!

My pang, and I can’t believe I’m alone in feeling it, was for the loss of yet another choice. I don’t get to vote in person any more, and now, in our restrictive two-party system, I don’t even get a real choice of candidates. I can choose between one person and party I disagree with on some points, or a different person and party I disagree with on other points. I don’t get the luxury of a variety of viewpoints, which so many other countries already have. My choice is limited to black or white, or more accurately, red or blue.

I want to vote for a candidate, not against one. I don’t want to choose a lesser evil.

And I do truly want to some day see the first woman elected president of the United States, but I want her to be elected as the best choice, not as the least repulsive option.

Not six months ago, I spoke with candidates who made their bids for office sound like community service. They were called to serve a higher need than their own communities. They talked about the influences from their parents, their teachers and their neighbors, and how those inputs shaped their politics.