I have officially been in South America for a full three months, regretting not for a second my decision to be here. Being able to travel for such a long time and enjoy myself so thoroughly without ever yearning to go home is not something I take for granted. That being said, there are a couple occasions for which I might have liked to momentarily teleport back to the U.S., if only for a few minutes.
One: during the big East Coast snow storm.
Okay, so I hate the cold. I will be going to college in sunny southern California after all. But I like snow, at least for a little while. I like building snowmen and cross-country skiing and seeing the snow pillow on top of buildings and cars and trees. I like the way everything looks so clean and cozy, until the winter wind whips across your palest face as you pound down the sidewalks, and the plow trucks invite everything with wheels back to dirty the snow, and it does not feel so cozy anymore.
Two: when Bill McKibben visited University of Redlands.
Just recently, Bill McKibben, a columnist and author well known within the environmental community, visited my university and I am extremely jealous of everyone who got to see him speak. One of his famous articles published by Rolling Stone is called Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, if you're looking for somewhere to start. He touches on the reasons the two degrees Celsius limit agreed upon in the Copenhagen Accord might be too much for the world to handle, how if we continue business as usual we will blow right through those two degrees, how we have five more times fossil fuels in our reserves than is safe to burn to even attempt to stay below this two degree limit. was published 4 years ago, but the information is still extremely relevant, considering most of the world has not internalized his warnings.
Three: now, as the Japanese cherry trees blossom in D.C.
Last April when I made my college decision, I realized I would not be seeing spring for a while. I was at least able to catch one more colorful autumn because I spent the first part of my gap year at home, but now as spring is blooming in the northern hemisphere, I'm reminded of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C that used to be just a hop skip and a jump away.
For all these, I am simply exchanging one good thing for another by being here instead. I could wear sandals every day in the Galapagos instead of winter boots. Here in Huanchaco I attend Spanish-English language exchanges instead of seeing speakers at Redlands. And in place of just a few weeks of fair spring temperatures, I have months of temperate weather.
But there is one thing that is a bit of a pain for me to be missing; the Presidential primaries on April 26th.
Some people might not think this is even an issue. Hardly ever does a single vote decide an election. I get it. But what if everyone decided that their vote didn't matter, and no one ever cast a single vote?
Here's the deal. According to electproject.org, only about 61% of the voting eligible population turned out to vote in the general election of 2008, the last time an incumbent wasn't running.
Perhaps one vote doesn't count. But when millions of people think this way, we end up with millions of votes that together could have drastically changed the outcome of any election, if the intent was there.
Though it's of course been varying from state to state, we currently have about 30% of the eligible population voting in the primaries so far in this election. Historically, primaries always have a lower turnout than the general election, but when on both the Republican and Democratic sides we have such huge decisions to make, I am flabbergasted as to why more people aren't voting. Democrats, the difference between Hillary and Bernie is massive. Do we want the same old same old, or are we looking for a political revolution? Republicans, are we going to allow a Mr. Donald Drumpf to actually be a contender for president in the general elections?
I am also ashamed to say that it's my generation that has the lowest voter outcome over all. This, for some reason, is another historic trend, but overall our 18- through 24 year-olds have dropped their voting rates from 50.9% in 1964 to 38% in 2012. C'mon people. This is a really sad looking graph.
One: during the big East Coast snow storm.
Okay, so I hate the cold. I will be going to college in sunny southern California after all. But I like snow, at least for a little while. I like building snowmen and cross-country skiing and seeing the snow pillow on top of buildings and cars and trees. I like the way everything looks so clean and cozy, until the winter wind whips across your palest face as you pound down the sidewalks, and the plow trucks invite everything with wheels back to dirty the snow, and it does not feel so cozy anymore.
Two: when Bill McKibben visited University of Redlands.
Just recently, Bill McKibben, a columnist and author well known within the environmental community, visited my university and I am extremely jealous of everyone who got to see him speak. One of his famous articles published by Rolling Stone is called Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, if you're looking for somewhere to start. He touches on the reasons the two degrees Celsius limit agreed upon in the Copenhagen Accord might be too much for the world to handle, how if we continue business as usual we will blow right through those two degrees, how we have five more times fossil fuels in our reserves than is safe to burn to even attempt to stay below this two degree limit. was published 4 years ago, but the information is still extremely relevant, considering most of the world has not internalized his warnings.
Three: now, as the Japanese cherry trees blossom in D.C.
Last April when I made my college decision, I realized I would not be seeing spring for a while. I was at least able to catch one more colorful autumn because I spent the first part of my gap year at home, but now as spring is blooming in the northern hemisphere, I'm reminded of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C that used to be just a hop skip and a jump away.
For all these, I am simply exchanging one good thing for another by being here instead. I could wear sandals every day in the Galapagos instead of winter boots. Here in Huanchaco I attend Spanish-English language exchanges instead of seeing speakers at Redlands. And in place of just a few weeks of fair spring temperatures, I have months of temperate weather.
But there is one thing that is a bit of a pain for me to be missing; the Presidential primaries on April 26th.
Some people might not think this is even an issue. Hardly ever does a single vote decide an election. I get it. But what if everyone decided that their vote didn't matter, and no one ever cast a single vote?
Here's the deal. According to electproject.org, only about 61% of the voting eligible population turned out to vote in the general election of 2008, the last time an incumbent wasn't running.
Perhaps one vote doesn't count. But when millions of people think this way, we end up with millions of votes that together could have drastically changed the outcome of any election, if the intent was there.
Though it's of course been varying from state to state, we currently have about 30% of the eligible population voting in the primaries so far in this election. Historically, primaries always have a lower turnout than the general election, but when on both the Republican and Democratic sides we have such huge decisions to make, I am flabbergasted as to why more people aren't voting. Democrats, the difference between Hillary and Bernie is massive. Do we want the same old same old, or are we looking for a political revolution? Republicans, are we going to allow a Mr. Donald Drumpf to actually be a contender for president in the general elections?
I am also ashamed to say that it's my generation that has the lowest voter outcome over all. This, for some reason, is another historic trend, but overall our 18- through 24 year-olds have dropped their voting rates from 50.9% in 1964 to 38% in 2012. C'mon people. This is a really sad looking graph.
(source)
Voting is one of the ways we as tiny individuals help decide the direction of our country. And if we're being honest, because of the United States’ absurd pull in world politics, how we cast our votes affects the rest of the world, too.
This is why, even though I am out of the country and had to jump through many hoops, I made it a point to sign up for and submit an absentee ballot.
The process for me started months ago in December.
First, I filled out a document to request my absentee ballot by hand and scanned and emailed it to my local board of elections. It was much easier to do this at home than while traveling for sure. However, I never got any confirmation that my ballot request had been received and accepted, so by the end of January I started to worry. I emailed my board of elections again in the email chain where I had my ballot attached, asking for a confirmation, and got a bit of a frustrating response.
“Ms. Sherline,
You will need to apply for your Absentee Ballot through the Maryland State Board of Elections. The web address is: www.elections.maryland.gov. If you have any questions please call me.”
Thanks. I already sent that to you, and you didn't answer my question. Regardless, I went to www.elections.maryland.gov and realized I could use the voter look-up website to see whether my request had been received (it was), which is apparently an easier question to ask a robot than one of the humans at the other end of the Board of Elections email address. Interesting.
Then March 5th, I got an email thanking me for my absentee ballot request. Yay! Now I could be super sure that my request was not just received but accepted as well. My ballot would be ready soon, and then the real fun would begin.
Sure enough, on March 17th I got another email. It was time to make an account on the voter services website so that I could get my absentee ballot! I made my account, did a printer test, filled out all my bubbles online, and through many printer jams, painfully printed out the ten page document and signed it. It made it so much easier to be able to use both a laptop and printer at FairMail, where I'm volunteering here in Huanchaco (more on that later!).
This is why, even though I am out of the country and had to jump through many hoops, I made it a point to sign up for and submit an absentee ballot.
The process for me started months ago in December.
First, I filled out a document to request my absentee ballot by hand and scanned and emailed it to my local board of elections. It was much easier to do this at home than while traveling for sure. However, I never got any confirmation that my ballot request had been received and accepted, so by the end of January I started to worry. I emailed my board of elections again in the email chain where I had my ballot attached, asking for a confirmation, and got a bit of a frustrating response.
“Ms. Sherline,
You will need to apply for your Absentee Ballot through the Maryland State Board of Elections. The web address is: www.elections.maryland.gov. If you have any questions please call me.”
Thanks. I already sent that to you, and you didn't answer my question. Regardless, I went to www.elections.maryland.gov and realized I could use the voter look-up website to see whether my request had been received (it was), which is apparently an easier question to ask a robot than one of the humans at the other end of the Board of Elections email address. Interesting.
Then March 5th, I got an email thanking me for my absentee ballot request. Yay! Now I could be super sure that my request was not just received but accepted as well. My ballot would be ready soon, and then the real fun would begin.
Sure enough, on March 17th I got another email. It was time to make an account on the voter services website so that I could get my absentee ballot! I made my account, did a printer test, filled out all my bubbles online, and through many printer jams, painfully printed out the ten page document and signed it. It made it so much easier to be able to use both a laptop and printer at FairMail, where I'm volunteering here in Huanchaco (more on that later!).
All that was left to do was go to the post office and mail it back to my board of elections (ballots via email are not accepted), and wait and hope for a response on the other end.
But wait. There is not a post office in Huanchaco. So fellow FairMail volunteer Nora and I hopped on a combi to the city of Trujillo, about a twenty minute ride away, in search of SerPost to send my ballot.
Postal workers across Peru had actually gone on strike a couple months before hand, but luckily the postal service was up and running again. We found the post office quite easily and 12.90 soles later (about 4USD), my envelope was all set to go to the U.S.
But wait. There is not a post office in Huanchaco. So fellow FairMail volunteer Nora and I hopped on a combi to the city of Trujillo, about a twenty minute ride away, in search of SerPost to send my ballot.
Postal workers across Peru had actually gone on strike a couple months before hand, but luckily the postal service was up and running again. We found the post office quite easily and 12.90 soles later (about 4USD), my envelope was all set to go to the U.S.
Now all that remains is that waiting and hoping part. May my ballot not get lost and be confirmed as received before the deadline.
Sometimes it's really hard to vote. Sometimes there are laws that prevent otherwise eligible people from voting like the strict voter ID laws in Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and soon to be North Carolina. To give the broad strokes, the ID laws make it harder for many minorities, busy students, the homeless, and those with expired drivers licenses to vote because they may not have the time, reason, or means to actually get a government official ID like a passport or drivers license. By the way, in Alabama, every single county whose population is more than 75% black was
going to have its driver´s license offices shut down until the U.S. Department of Transportation did an investigation regarding voter discrimination. This is another whole issue in and of itself.
But if you are not subject to this discrimination and the only thing you’re lacking is the will to vote, for God’s sake get over yourself and get your butt down to the polls.
Songs I've been listening to: Sunday Candy by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, Que Todo El Mundo Sepa Que... by Elefantes
Sometimes it's really hard to vote. Sometimes there are laws that prevent otherwise eligible people from voting like the strict voter ID laws in Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and soon to be North Carolina. To give the broad strokes, the ID laws make it harder for many minorities, busy students, the homeless, and those with expired drivers licenses to vote because they may not have the time, reason, or means to actually get a government official ID like a passport or drivers license. By the way, in Alabama, every single county whose population is more than 75% black was
going to have its driver´s license offices shut down until the U.S. Department of Transportation did an investigation regarding voter discrimination. This is another whole issue in and of itself.
But if you are not subject to this discrimination and the only thing you’re lacking is the will to vote, for God’s sake get over yourself and get your butt down to the polls.
Songs I've been listening to: Sunday Candy by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, Que Todo El Mundo Sepa Que... by Elefantes
UPDATE May 12th, 2016: On April 25th, the day before the Maryland primaries and more than twenty days after I had mailed it, my ballot had still not reached MD. As it had only taken about ten days for a letter from my mom to arrive from the U.S., I was afraid my ballot had been lost. I called the Maryland Board of Elections and learned some very pertinent information: overseas covers are given approximately two extra weeks for their ballot to arrive and be counted after the date of the primaries, as long as the letter is postmarked by voting day. I was quite disappointed that my vote, if it made it, would be sneakily added to the results after the 26th when it had already been called who won the state. It took over a month for my ballot to reach the Board of Elections, but in the end, I did receive a confirmation that my ballot was accepted!