I tried. I really did. I went to the Board of Elections. Then I sent in about six little postcards indicating my interest in becoming a pollworker. I haranged the Democratic Elections Commissioner for my county. I even switched parties, giving up my precious Independent registration for the chance to monitor, sternly, the oscillation of the vote-concealing curtains that look like they were made from the ripped-off seat covers of a 1972 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

Even the training last week was a ball. I put in for a personal day on November 4. Gleefully, I received my assignment: The Pumpkin Hook Fire Hall. I’m not kidding.

I wanted it bad.

But I will have to settle for publishing a short list of fun facts about voting in New York, because the double ear infection which may require intubation caught up with me just as I was figuring out which political slogan t-shirts I couldn’t legally wear that day.

I was back in school today giving it the old college try, despite being able to hear little more than my own Darth Vader breathing. Gotta tell ya, it’s fun tromping around the room trying to give notes on conflict in literature and having to cup my hand around the side of my head and say, “EHHHHH?” to every tween who tries to participate, like I’ve recently been cryogenically defrosted from the Civil War era.

I console myself with this:

  • Every vote in New York is checked six times by equal numbers of unpaid members of the majority and minority parties.
  • Republican and Democratic commissioner alike for my county had hilariously snooty scorn to heap upon voting procedures in Florida. “None of that around here,” they sniffed. “You’re in line at 9 PM, you vote. Period.”
  • As a pollworker one can, in fact, accept orange juice and doughnuts bought by a bipartisan slush fund without compromising one’s integrity.
  • Write-in candidates for office in New York have more often included Mickey Mouse than Charlton Heston.
  • There’s always next year.
  • Obama won.

    • The horizon leans forward,
    Offering you space to place new steps of change.
    Here, on the pulse of this fine day
    You may have the courage
    To look up and out upon me, the
    Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
    No less to Midas than the mendicant.
    No less to you now than the mastodon then.

    Here on the pulse of this new day
    You may have the grace to look up and out
    And into your sister’s eyes, into
    Your brother’s face, your country
    And say simply
    Very simply
    With hope
    Good morning

    ~ Maya Angelou