In the seven

The United States is one of the world's most famous democracy, yet we rank near the bottom of all nations in voter turnout. The U.S. Census data says most Americans don't vote because it's inconvenient.    

In November 1990 I was living abroad.  Prior to leaving the U.S., I made an adequate living in entertainment—yet I was one of the working millions of Americans who didn’t have health insurance.   After seeing how efficiently socialized medicine worked in Europe, where doctors did not live like kings—it was incomprehensible that Americans be deprived of the basic right to be healthy.  So I voted for William Jefferson Clinton.  By casting my ballot I felt like an essential cog in the wheel of civilization and was proud to do my part.  

Absentee ballots are like a small crew, for people who don't live in the U.S. but still exercise a right to vote.  Later, I found out that only seven percent of Americans abroad bother to cast their ballots.  I could count myself in the percentage but couldn’t believe the level of disengagement. 

There are a lot of reasons for this apathy. Some Americans choose to live overseas because they are fed up with their home country, and they may believe that whoever chooses to live in the country deserves what they get come Election Day.  Or perhaps they figure that their one vote won’t matter. In my opinion, that speaks volumes about what they think about themselves.

The quirks of the Electoral College can also sap an expat's motivation to put in the effort required to cast an overseas vote. Why bother keeping track of the special deadlines for registering, obtaining and returning a ballot, one could argue, if your vote is just a surplus drop in a red or blue bucket? And then there is the sneaking suspicion that votes that arrive in airmail envelopes simply don't get count.

I remember shuffling through security at the U.S. Embassy, I checked a box on the back of a postcard and then handed it—after I securely placed it in a green and white envelope—to a consular worker bearing the bored and bemused expression of a postal clerk accepting a child's letter to Santa Claus. When I left that office, I felt that my vote—counted as much as the president's; that all that is best about the way the American government operates is founded on the simple dignity of this act.

I know that voting absentee just as voting early is technically the same as voting on Election Day.  Although for me, early takes the fun out of it.  I like pomp and circumstance and can’t wear my “I voted” sticker day in and day out.  This year as in 1990 were the only times I cast my ballot prior to the big day.    

The task of voting—small as it is—is still worth it. Which reminds me, did you vote?