After some thought and my usual procrastination I decided to vote by absentee ballot. Being disabled, I qualify to vote early in my home state. I hate to admit this, but I actually did not vote in the primary because of a sudden flare-up of my disease that put me down for several days. I decided this election was too important to be left to the whims of my disease. I also did not relish the thought of possibly having to stand in line for what could be too long. If the turnout predictions are to be believed, my state, which has historically been one of the top five in voting percentage, is a likely candidate to generate those lines everyone is worried about.

My state allows you to vote early in person or by mail. Considering the unpredictability of the U.S. Mail, the record number of absentee ballots that already have been filed, and what no doubt is an overwhelmed Secretary of State’s office, voting in person seemed a no-brainer.

In Minnesota if you elect to vote in person it must be at the county courthouse. For some people in some counties this can be quite a drive. In Northern Minnesota where my parents lived that drive could easily be over an hour. In what we term “the cities,” it also probably means large parking fee. I bring this up just to illustrate the unequal playing field many people face when trying to vote early. I thank my state for allowing early voting in person, but wish they would make it easier for everyone. Luckily my courthouse is only ten minutes away with no parking fee.

I guess I should not have been surprised at what I found when I arrived. There at the absentee ballot office there was a line–not a very long one–but a line just the same. Luckily I had downloaded the requisite form and filled it out so I did not have to wait to do that.

The people in charge could not have been more helpful or accommodating. They had set up about a half-dozen voting booths near by so there was no wait to actually vote once I had received my ballot. The clerks carefully explained the procedure as if they actually wanted to be sure every ballot counted.

The most surprising development was how liberal they seemed to be in interpreting the absentee ballot standards. Most people just checked the appropriate box and were handed a ballot without question. One woman asked the voting officials if it was OK to vote absentee because she worked on Election Day and was not sure she could make her polling place in time (our commutes are some of the nation’s longest due to guess what–budget cuts in highway construction). They told her she better vote now. To another voter they remarked, “Those lines are going to be long.” It was almost as though they were encouraging early voting to prevent an overload on Election Day.

When I had my ballot and walked back to the voting booth, the seriousness of the moment hit me. It had not expected it, having voted enough times that it has become routine. But the importance of this election as a watershed in American history finally hit home as I stared at my ballot. I was about to vote for an African American for President. That this should happen in my lifetime had me taking a firm grip on the pen used to fill in the ovals in the optical scan ballots we use.

But the moment also made me reflect on its national importance. This election has the feel of what it must have been like in 1960 or 1932 or 1912. The choices between the two tickets were stark and obvious. Our country stands at a figurative fork in the road and each of us standing there voting was having a voice in the choice of which fork to take.

Something else also hit me. For the first time in a long time this was not a hold-your-nose and vote choice. The feeling of actually voting for a candidate doe positive reasons was an emotion I thought had been lost, buried by the likes of John Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis. I had not ever felt this good voting for a candidate.

This was not an anybody but Bush vote or an anybody but the Counterrevolution vote. It was a vote for possibility, for hope, for Jefferson’s idea that every once in awhile this nation needs a shakeup that takes us in a new direction.

I have expressed my doubts that Barack Obama is a true transformational leader, but in the voting booth the words I recalled were Colin Powell’s comments about the possibility of transformation. As I carefully filled in my ballot I did so believing in the possibility of that transformation. The future will show if Barack Obama is truly a transformational President, but right now all I had to go on was what I had seen and heard over the last year. This writer who has criticized the Democratic Party numerous times found himself believing that transformation truly was possible for the first time in my lifetime.

That thought had me checking my ballot to be sure everything was in order. I felt like a grade schooler being lectured about coloring inside the lines when I filled in those ovals even though I knew the optical scanner was forgiving as long as the choice is clear.

The penultimate moment came when I sealed that ballot in its envelope. Something in me wanted to prolong that moment, to photograph the memory in my mind. On the day after Election Day when I made my ritual pilgrimage to Paul and Sheila Wellstone’s graves there would be much to ponder.

I anticipate that some people, especially older people of color, may leave the voting booth with tears of joy in their eyes. That envelope I had just sealed has become part of history.

More than that it has become part of the promise of America, not merely because a person of color could very well become President, but because something larger. Call it promise, call it possibility, call it optimism or faith, but I hoped that ballot would become part of a river of similar ballots that all flowed over America washing away the Era of Bad Feelings and the last eight years in a torrent that said once again our country stood for something that would make the world again see the American Dream and celebrate it.

I handed my ballot to the election official with all the emotions of a student handing in what they think will be an “A” essay. I had not written a word, but I had made myself heard. And somehow I knew there would be as lot more voices like that. And maybe that was the true meaning of handing in that ballot, for I felt connected to America and Americans in a way that had the future opening up for all of us even as we face one of the most serious times in our history.

America was going to be ours again, not the plaything of a privileged few, not the rogue nation that has the rest of the world wondering what crazy thing we will do next, not the nation that belittles its own government, not the nation that has forgotten its commitment to the level playing field. One ballot at a time we would retake this nation. It feels good to be one of those ballots.

Tagged with: absentee ballot • age • Al Gore • bad feelings • Barack Obama • candidate • colin powell • counterrevolution • county courthouse • Democratic Party • disabled • early voting • election day • faith • Jefferson • John Kerry • level playing field • Michael Dukakis • northern minnesota • Obama • person of color • press • secretary of state • Sheila Wellstone • transformation • transformational • transformational leader • turnout • unpredictability • voting booth • voting booths • Wellstone