Voting Day Stories - III

The lines at the firehouse where my wife and our four year old stopped to vote was relatively small. It was a quick affair and she called me and said that all went through smoothly. The workflow built into the voting machine in New Jersey follow a two step process. First you get to pick all of the candidates for the state, senate and the Presidential races of your choice. Once selected, you then press a button to 'vote' for the selected choices. My wife said that she had no problems selecting the various choices on the ballot. My wife then told me that when the time came to press the button to cast the ‘vote’, she did not do it. I asked her what happened. Did she not feel up to the great task of actually participating in this final rite of passage after being battered with promises and ads over the last two years? She then told me over the phone that she made our four year old son do it. I think she did that in the belief that what she did today at the polls was more for our children than for ourselves. Yes, to a large extent we do these things for ourselves, but in the end run, we are here to pass the baton and we better pass a cleaner baton than a ruined old, dirty one to our children.