After going with me to vote in the primary yesterday afternoon, last night Wild Man joined C and I as we caucused in our Home State. This was a risky adventure as the caucus took place right in the middle of his bedtime, but he cooperated, allowing his parents to take part in the democratic process. I wrote about this experience in more depth at The Rhetorical Situation. I do want to say that I did not find the caucus experience particularly family friendly. Although there were lots of families at our precinct (I counted at least 10 kids under the age of 8, and 5 of those were toddlers like Wild Man), the poll workers were not particularly friendly to our situation. Although I was finally able to ascertain that we did not have to stay for the entire 2 plus hours, no one seemed to care that we had a child who clearly would rather have been in bed than in a church courtyard at 7:45 pm. I don't think this particular tradition adds to the democratic process as it severely limits the number of people who are able to participate. This is a seriously flawed system, and someone needs to figure out how to fix it.
C did, however, remind me that this is the second time that Wild Man has been with us when we voted: he joined us in November 2006 when he was just a few weeks old.
2 comments:
I agree with the caucus flaw. I could did not caucus last night, after voting earlier in the day, because Gabe is away and the caucus was scheduled smack in the middle of Luke's bedtime routine. There is a severe parking shortage at my precinct location and I felt pretty frustrated that my vote was less meaningful because my child needed to be getting ready for bed at that time. Good for you guys for getting out though.
A woman we were in line with was born and raised in TX, and so we asked her a few questions about the reason behind having both a primary and a caucus. The best answer she would give is that "Texas likes to be different." Not a good enough reason to make people's votes less meaningful if they were unable to caucus. As one of my students said yesterday when we were discussing the caucus, having a person's vote count only as 2/3rds a vote is remarkably similar to the way the U.S. government once accounted for enslaved people. To me, it just seems like legalized voting disenfranchisement.
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