If you decide to vote on Tuesday, obey the new law: Do not vote alone.Suppose you decide to walk to your polling place. That is certainly possible for most voters on Maui. Why not walk? It’s the healthy thing to do, and there must be at least one other person in your neighborhood whose health you’d like to support. Don’t call that person up and say, “Let’s go vote.” Instead, call up, or just drop by, and say, “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s take a walk.” Strike out together, walking at a nice pace. (IDs in your pockets, of course.) When you arrive at the church, school or community building that is your polling place, you suddenly decide to vote and invite your walking partner to join you.
Walking, part two: When you’re home from voting, drop in on another friend, and try the trick again. If this were Chicago, I suppose I could say, “Vote early. Vote often.” I won’t. So, when you walk Friend No. 2 to the polls, chances are that you’re going to have to admit you’ve already voted. So, get Friend No. 2 to vote “just because it’s so easy to just step in and handle it.”
Unless you’re a marathon person, you’ll be sweatin’ big time by now. Two may be your limit, but for the sake of democracy and making this a real election of the people, by the people and all that, rinse and repeat if you’re able.
It may be harder to get tricky with a car, but try this: Invite five friends from your neighborhood to a potluck on the beach, and offer to drive everyone (less gas burned, fewer parking spaces required, whatever). Then, you stop off to vote. Who would even consider admitting they’re too stupid to have their choices figured out? They’ll have to vote, too.
Let me make one last suggestion: Go door to door around your neighborhood inviting whole families to join you, making the longest parade-to-the-polls of parents and children ever in the history of Maui. I’m sure this has never been done. The Guinness Book of World Records probably won’t be interested, but you could try saying, “I’m thinking Guinness could be interested,” or something noncommittal like that. Go further if you don’t mind a useful lie in the service of the greater good.
Vote! That’s the message. I know it is wasted on two-thirds of people who registered, and absolutely wasted on all the people who didn’t bother to register. Still, if every person who is registered and willing to vote takes three others to the polls, we’ll have 100 percent participation of registered voters in this election. Maui will be famous across the state and all over the country. We’ll be called the best-voting island in the world. Politicians will say, “Maui no ka ‘oi.” Tourists will say, “Let’s skip the crater and the beach. We have to see these famous polling places. Who has the map?”
Well… maybe not! But, we’ll have a real election, and we won’t have to be ashamed of ourselves. Better yet, most of us will have earned one of the most beautiful and most profoundly American of all possible rights: We’ll have the right to grumble about poor behavior and bad choices made by government. Whoo-hoo! (No, really!)
I told you, more than a month ago, that I wasn’t going to keep begging you to vote. I lied, but for the best possible reason.
Let’s talk about something else. About… about… oh, darn, I can’t think of anything else to talk about. Nothing else matters. Granted, most County Council seats are decided beyond any hope of changing them, but not all. So, in small spaces of the county government, maybe some shaded corners of the state legislature, we can make a difference by voting in huge and surprising numbers. There’s another benefit, though, a much bigger one: If we could get 80,000 ballots cast in Maui County this Nov. 4, we’d have 80,000 people who know how quick and painless it is to vote, and how nice it is not to feel ashamed when asked, “Didja vote yet?”
Besides, some of the 2008 voters would forget to be lazy next time around, and they’d just think, “Election Day. I might as well vote, and get it over with.” So, if you take a couple of people to the polls on Tuesday, you’ll be growing the American democracy. You’ll be a hero of the Republic. You’ll be a full-on power broker with unlimited opportunities… Er, well, I’m getting carried away here. That happens when I think about the incredible wonder that is the U.S. election. Think of it. Every four or eight years, we have a bloodless revolution, completely replacing our government with another one that is staffed, from the top down, with people we trust and believe in.
Hm? It doesn’t really always work out that way, but I honestly, genuinely, truly believe that if you take a couple of extra voters to the polls on Tuesday, we can turn this thing around to the point that elections really do result in a government for the people at every level.
It’s all in your hands, the way I see it.