Yesterday, I voted. I walked down slowly to the library – my left hamstring is being so uncooperative – and then I sat down on the low brick wall next to the vote deposit box and just sat and watched. Slowly, one after another, people of no particular description walked down the street, looked for the vote deposit box and then spotted it, and with little fanfare put their voting envelope into the depository. The box is a little bit confusing. There is a slot to push your envelope in, not complicated, but for some reason just below the slot there is a one of those drawers that swivel open to take in boxes in a mailbox. Obviously, it's there for no reason – probably left over mail boxes now repurposed. So all of us south Berkeley voters put the envelope in the obvious slot, and then some of us tried to open the package drawer, which didn't open, and we had quizzical looks on our faces for a few seconds and then wandered off, job completed.
As I sat there, there was never any line, but the flow of voters was steady, some in pairs, some singles. We were all doing the same thing. Everyone had the same envelope. Everyone was very casual about it. Everyone was dressed very casually. But at the same time, we had to feel that we doing something serious.
I used to vote in person on election day, and I found some solidarity in the familiarity of going to John Muir School and signing in and filling out the ballot in one of the stations they set up there. I thought I would miss that in switching to the mail-in ballot, but I really haven't. There has been a different sort of solidarity with mail ballots. Sometimes neighbors let neighbors drop off their ballots. And this time I was one of the thread of people drifting down to the library.
When I got home, since it was a Tuesday, my housekeeping gardening couple of 30 years, Jose and Antonia, were there to greet me. Antonia is a citizen now – she's more adept with language, etc., than Jose, so he hasn't taken that final step. I asked her who she had voted for for governor. I thought she might have voted for Becerra, since they had Mexican descent in common. Antonia said that, despite the fact that she is a citizen and Jose isn't, she had relied on his advice. She said that she is always busy with family stuff and the house – they live with their daughter and her family in Oakland – and that Jose keeps up more with politics. So she said that, on Jose's advice, she had voted for San Jose mayor Matt Mahan.
I was surprised – Mahan? He was polling at about 5-7%, I think. What an interesting choice! I asked Antonia, why him? She said, I don't know, we'll have to ask Jose.
So we went out front to where Jose was doing some gentle pruning. I asked him, why had he advised Antonia to vote for Mahan? Jose was very decisive. He said that it was because of his family background. His mother had been a housewife, and his father had been a letter carrier. Jose said that he felt that with that background, Mahan would be a solid governor. Interesting! He was voting on the basis of family background, which is like voting for character. He didn't look at individual issues, etc., he wanted a good, solid man, and would trust him to make good choices.
That reminded me of my Maui Uber driver last March. He was a 63 year old Filipino man who had been in construction, and now had semi-retired. I forget how we came to talk about it, but he said that the thing that most disturbed him about Trump was the ballroom. That's the people's house, not his house!, said my driver, with some feeling. Like Jose, he had zeroed in on character, maybe a little idiosyncratically – with Trump, there is no shortage of character issues – but that is the one that stung.
What unites a country? I've always said that sports is an underrated factor. But this process of voting is really so central. We consider things separately, we vote separately, but we discuss collectively along the way, we consult public sources to get our information, and we vote collectively. Separately, but collectively. It just gives us an aura.
It's kind of funny in a way. Voting is built on competition, of people and of ideas. Voting is done by each person individually. But from this competition and this individuality comes a sense of collectivity, something we all do together. That is so important for a country – we all do it separately, but together.
Budd Shenkin
