". . . little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver . . ."

(William Shakespeare's Othello, I.iii.88-90)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Vote Early, Vote Often

Yesterday when I dropped off my youngest child at at preschool, the teacher encouraged him to vote in a class election: what kind of pumpkin should we carve today? To vote, each child needed to write his or her name on a tally sheet under either the word "happy" or the word "scary." So far, there had been a couple of votes for "happy" but none for "scary." Evan announced his preference for the latter and set about writing his name on the first line while I chatted with the teacher. After a few minutes I looked back to see Evan's progress and discovered that not only had he finished writing his name on the first line, but he had gone on to write it again on the second and third lines as well. What do you know--suddenly "scary" was in the lead!

This is what I get for living in Chicago, I suppose. Time for a lesson in democracy: "Honey, you can't vote more than once. That wouldn't be fair." The two extra votes were dutifully erased and Scary Pumpkin went down in defeat. (It was a close race, though: 4 votes to 3.)

One man, one vote. It's a good concept. If only we could as easily ensure its application in our national elections as we can in a preschool classroom.

2 comments:

Elephantschild said...

*gasp*

Time to move your boy to the sticks before he decides to run for mayor!

Susan said...

That's what you get for living in Chicago??? Hey, being a downstate Illinois girl, I used to think Chicago was the epitome of dirty, cheatin' elections. Now I live in Milwaukee and think that the Chicago voting system looks pretty good in comparison. At least, in Chicago, when the dead people vote, they only vote once.