Election Day used to really feel like Christmas Day to me.
Way back to I can keep in mind, the day was an thrilling one. My dad and mom voted religiously, my dad within the temporary window between arriving dwelling from work and the 7 p.m. ballot closures.
Mother, who didn’t work in my early childhood years, had no alternative however to take me along with her to vote at what was then one of many few, if not the one, polling areas in Williamson County — the antebellum county courthouse, with monumental Doric columns and white painted brick.
The event was particular and ceremonial, in the best way something out of the extraordinary is when one is younger, and my mom — by no means one to do something midway — would apparel herself accordingly in a gown, heels and her omnipresent “Honeybee Pink” shade of lipstick.
As soon as inside the old fashioned voting cubicles, with heavy canvas curtains that had been closed through lever, Mother would make her picks and level to the suitable place so I may pull the little levers and “vote.”
Later, when she turned an elected official, the household gathered round our huge radio on Election Evening to take heed to outcomes with anticipation, feeling assured — however nonetheless a bit nervous — that Mother would win.
No shock, then, that I volunteered for my first marketing campaign on the age of 14, donning a pretend straw boater and handing out bumper stickers within the car parking zone of Kroger to assist a person from our church who was operating for the Tennessee Common Meeting. He ran as a Republican, an uncommon prevalence in Seventies Tennessee and he ran to interchange a Democrat, however regardless of: As tuned in as I used to be for a child, I don’t keep in mind a lot speak of partisan politics even among the many adults in my household, who break up between the 2 main events.
One other Election Day approaches, the umpteenth I’ve labored or lined over the lat 35 years, however as the nice blues artist B.B. King sang, the fun is gone. I’m fairly positive I’m the one one who feels ennui about elections as of late, as indicated by statewide early voter turnout virtually 1 / 4 decrease than in 2018, the final midterm election yr.
I went straight from faculty to a 1987 congressional marketing campaign in Nashville, a particular election between Bob Clement, who holds the file for the youngest particular person elected to statewide workplace in Tennessee and son of Gov. Frank Clement, political rookie Phil Bredesen, trailblazer Jane Eskind and civil rights chief Walter Searcy.
The compressed timeline made for a wild race, with veteran Democrats supporting Clement, Bredesen pouring private cash into his bid, lawsuits filed in opposition to candidates and allegations of tapped telephones tossed. It launched me to elements of old-school elections like “strolling round cash” — hopefully a factor of the previous — wherein marketing campaign officers gave money to volunteers to drive voters to the polls.
With early voting a observe but to be launched, the race got here all the way down to a cliffhanger on main evening between Clement and Bredesen, with the end result driving on lower than 4,000 votes in a district comprised of half one million eligible voters.
I rehash this now as we method one other main Election Day, the umpteenth I’ve labored or written about over the past 35 years. However, as the nice blues artist B.B. King sang, the fun is gone, and I don’t suppose I’m the one one who feels ennui about elections as of late.
Ennui is outlined as a sense of listlessness or dissatisfaction and that looks like a great way to explain Tennessee’s dismal voter turnout this yr. The Volunteer State by no means units data for participation, rating close to the underside of the 50 states in virtually each metric measured for election participation, however this yr, voting is especially tepid.
My dwelling, Williamson County, is normally a standout in voting numbers, however this yr not a lot. Statewide, early voting totals are down virtually 24% from the 2018 early vote interval. In Williamson, early voting is simply down by simply over 8% however in Davidson, which options two extremely aggressive legislative main races, turnout is down a whopping 39%.
With the election nonetheless just a few days away and the final election three months sooner or later, thorough evaluation is on maintain. However talking for a lot of registered voters to whom I speak, just a few elements play into the dearth of enthusiasm.
A kind of is a shortage of choices on ballots and a sense of fatalism. As Lucas Brooks reported for the Lookout in July, virtually half — 45 of 99 — State Home seats don’t have Democrats operating. Whereas it might be comprehensible Democrats lack the urge for food for taking up campaigns in a state that went for former President Donald Trump twice by greater than 61%, voters are being damage.
Detrimental campaigning isn’t new and political professionals say it’s virtually not possible to win a hotly-contested main with out “going detrimental,” however boy, the previous couple of years of political hostility and the proliferation of impartial expenditure PACS and the ensuing mud have burned out probably the most avid political junkies. Witness the Republican main in Tennessee’s fifth Congressional District, wherein one candidate has been falsely accused of failing to pay taxes and blame is laid solely on one other for giving undocumented immigrants the fitting to vote — whereas tying that vote to the 9/11 terrorist assaults.
It’s foul.
I voted early, as I typically do as of late, however I did so with no enthusiasm. The event didn’t really feel like a vacation and I didn’t put on make-up as I schlepped to the polls. I miss the times when elections and the act of voting had been thrilling. However nonetheless, I voted. And Tennesseans have to do the identical.
