Yesterday was primary day here in North Carolina and at about 11 o’clock in the morning Susie and I set out to vote. We left Carolina Meadows by the south exit, turned left on Whippoorwill Lane, then right on Farrington, right again on Lystra Road, until we reached the North Chatham Elementary School. It was a brilliant sunny day already in the 80s, and when we pulled into a handicap parking place, a cheerful, helpful man offered to let us vote from our cars. As his assistant went off to get the ballots, we chatted. He said it had been pretty busy – already perhaps 175 people – and he expected three or four hundred before the day was done. He told me he is a retired forester who worked in Duke Forest for 35 years. It was as peaceful a scene has one could possibly imagine. There were no picketers standing just outside the limit line, no self-appointed poll judges there to harass Black voters.
Chatham County is one of 100 counties in North Carolina and
I imagine there may be as many as 50,000 or 100,000 polling places
nationwide. The experience briefly gave
me hope that representative democracy, such as it is, may survive here in the
United States.
There were only four races on the ballot – three local races
for Chatham County officials, about which I had no opinion, and a highly
contested race for a Democratic nominee for the Senate seat being vacated by
Republican Richard Burr. Susie and I
voted for Cheri Beasley, formerly the Chief Justice of the North Carolina
Supreme Court. The last report I saw, she had 85% of the vote so perhaps it was
not absolutely necessary that we got out to vote, but I am glad we did.
3 comments:
May we conclude that since Susie was able to go out and accompany you to the polling location that she is well on the mend? Good news.
Thank you, Marc, and operation is difficult when you are 89 but she is doing much better and is very brave.
Sounds like your county has an excellent set-up. Out here the county sent me an e-mail that my ballot was in the mail (one can opt for e-mails every step of the way). Stopped by the market the other day and the drop box was already in place (election is in June). It's simple to make voting easy.
Ditto MS's sentiments.
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