I was a part of history today during Wisconsin's pandemic election, and I thought people might be interested in what the experience was like, so: A Thread

I'm currently in a household with a relative over sixty with multiple rona risks, and I have fibromyalgia myself and my immune system tends to be shit. Responsible citizen that I am, I requested an absentee ballot on time. I never got it.

I had other things on my mind and just assumed it would get here yesterday or today; I knew they were swamped with requests.

I grew up in a very Scandinavian family; we have a horror of inconveniencing others (unless we're deliberately being passive-aggressive lol), so I didn't press the matter. (That said, it doesn't sound like it would have made a difference even if I had.)

And there were all of these fast-moving developments: as best I understand, first the governor said he couldn't legally postpone the election? - then a special session was called - then he DID postpone the election - then Republicans protested - then the courts got involved.

I didn't follow all of these ins-and-outs because 1) I have a life, and 2) I was under the naive impression that I'd be able to vote regardless of what happened, since my on-time request for an absentee ballot was officially on file.

But then, less than 24 hours before voting starts, this happens. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/supreme-court-wisconsin-absentee-ballots.html

The ruling "allowed Wisconsin to throw out ballots postmarked and received after Election Day, even if voters were entirely blameless for the delay."

So bottom line for my case, if I didn't get my absentee ballot in the mail today (spoiler: I didn't), it would not count.

Thanks to @benwikler's INVALUABLE twitter feed, I found out the site you go to to check on the status of your ballot, which is where I got this screenshot from.

So now (because again, I'm Scandinavian) I'm ashamed AF, and now sure that the problem is with me. I start digging through old mail piles. Asking my relative, "Did you see the ballot?" But - nothing. It hadn't arrived.

Then I see online that lots of other people are saying they've had the same problem, so the shame did a neat little metamorphosis to fury.

So now it's around 10pm the day before the election and I realize I have a choice: vote in person during a pandemic, or not vote at all. I start feeling like a character in a side-plot of some sh*tty direct-to-video dystopia movie.

I have a truly surreal late-night conversation with my relative: are you comfortable with me taking the risk of bringing this virus back to you? I didn't feel like I could take that risk without her go-ahead.

We talked it over, and she believed it was important that a message be sent and that we not be cowed. (That's a less colorful summary of what she actually said lol.) So she said yes, she was willing to take that risk.

But I'm still really, really struggling over this. My mom died at 59 of cancer and I keep imagining how I would have coped if I'd been the one to give her the cancer, or if she'd have had to die alone, and... Eau Claire isn't a hotspot yet but you can't HELP but think about this.

I know the risk of getting infected is likely very low. But I still go to bed deciding that protecting my family is more important than fighting for my vote.

When I wake up this morning, though, for whatever reason, I've changed my mind. I know deep down that I'm going to regret it if I don't vote. I feel the need to *do* something.

I think of the activists who made the 19th Amendment happen, only a hundred years ago.

I also think of my great-great grandfather. He was an illiterate illegitimate teenage Norwegian immigrant who taught himself a trade and lived for a while in Neenah, Wisconsin. He was deeply involved in socialist and workers' movements around the turn of the century.

The image I can't shake, though, is the one of Wisconsinites who don't have my level of privilege, who will be forced to wait half a day or more in line to vote. During a pandemic. Who will risk illness or death to do it anyway.

When I think of them, I've run out of excuses.

So the die is cast; I'm going to do this.

I do everything I can think of to reduce risk. My relative lends me a scarf to make a mask, digs out some plastic gloves. (Maybe they won't help, but at least they'll be reminders not to touch my face.) I put a change of clothes in the garage.

I find an old coat of my grandma's. I wear a ridiculous wide-brimmed hat to feel a little better, and to maybe use as a built-in umbrella, because it's misting and I have no idea how long the lines will be or if I'll have to wait outside.

The neighborhood I grew up in is white AF, so therefore when it comes to voting, I'm privileged AF. My normal polling place is open.

(Where you live is obviously all-important. Milwaukee, a city with a population of roughly 600k, only had five polling places open today.)

I realize I haven't made my mask yet, so I sit in the car outside the polling place and spend an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out youtube tutorials about how to make a mask out of a scarf. I literally laugh at myself because I'm near tears at the absurdity.

I notice that my ability to focus or remember the order of how things should be done is COMPLETELY shot.

I haven't needed to be near people since this started (again, privileged AF), and I'm so stressed that a wrong move somehow, somewhere, might be the one that accidentally infects myself or my relative.

As I'm trying to figure out my own mask situation, I notice about half of the voters going in don't have masks. Not sure what exactly that means, but it was striking.

At the door of the polling place...*this.*

My reaction to that:

So I go in. I realize I'm lucky that there are just as many volunteers as voters, but also I'm furious beyond words because, again, I know there are only five polling places open in Milwaukee.

The first guy is behind a portable plexiglass shield, like he's a teller at a bank prone to robbery. He says "do you have your ID? and your rewards number?" and it takes me a moment to realize the second part is a joke lol (which, honestly, my nerves appreciated)

I'm told I can't use my own pen, which...okay. The ballot scanners probably need a certain kind? Maybe? Anyway, I take a pen from the table. I'm told it's now my pen, and I can deposit it in a basket afterward (not sure where they went) or take it home with me.

(If you're wondering if I took the pandemic pen home with me, you don't know me; of course I did)

The next woman, also behind a plexiglass shield, asks for my name and address. I explain that I requested an absentee ballot, but it never arrived, and that will be on-record. She says that this has happened to a lot of people.

I sign my signature over the "Requested Absentee" indication in the binder. She checks my driver's license, looking back and forth from my masked self to the card and back to me. "I see your eyes," she says simply, and it's a bizarre, weirdly human moment.

The next station over, the one where I actually get my ballot, I have to show my ID again. There's a tape outline of where I should put it so she can see it from through the plexiglass shield.

To the best of my incomplete knowledge, this area on the table where IDs were being put was not being disinfected between voters, even though each one of us had to touch it to put down and pick up your card. Is that problematic? Idk. Am I a hypochondriac? Probably

This worker is businesslike and stressed to the gills. She looks at my ID and...*tells me to take off my mask.* "You can step back, if you want," she says.

As best I understand, the masks do nothing to protect the wearer; they're mainly to help keep the wearer from spreading the virus. (Again, as best I understand.)

But still, having me take off the mask forces me touch my face multiple times, because oh yeah, I also have to adjust it to keep my glasses from fogging up.

And I'm standing there as she looks me up and down and I'm thinking, what the HELL kind of voter fraud tactic am I being presumed to be involved with here?

INT., BASEMENT OF THE DNC, PROBABLY
"We shall foil voter ID laws across the nation by unleashing a pandemic across the land, encouraging citizens to wear masks, then find an army of people who have similar bone structure around their same-colored eyes!"

Seriously, the female part, the 5'5" part, the 95 pounds part, the gray eyes part, the blonde hair part, the 30-years-old part, the eyes part... all were insufficient. My nose and lips were apparently considered integral to foiling my incipient voter fraud plot

Should I have fought back? Probably. But at a certain point, after you've already been subjected to so much absurdity, you just lose your will to keep fighting it.

So finally I'm at a booth. I fill in my choice for the Dem presidential primary. Did I mark the box for my favorite? No. Was it a little rough emotionally? Yeah. Am I about to crawl over corona-infected broken glass to vote for Biden? Yes. Yes, I am.

(In the general, I mean. God, don't hijack my thread with ANYTHING having to do with the battle between B. vs S., because especially after today I do not want to hear ANY OF IT. If this thread disturbs you, vote for the Dem nominee in November, end of story, no discussion.)

It strikes me halfway through that I don't know when this voting booth has been disinfected last?? I try to not think about that.

Then, disaster.

In between face-mask making and changing & getting half-naked in my garage to go vote, I've forgotten to look up one of the down ballot races.

I have no idea which candidate shares my values. I can check on my phone, but that means taking off gloves. Are the gloves helping? Did they ever help? Are they contaminated? Do I submit a half-finished ballot? Plus about 1000 more questions I need Dr. Fauci on speed-dial for.

The annoying teacher's pet in me insists on checking on my phone (God forbid we hand in an incomplete assignment!) so... If the gloves helped, they stopped helping at that point lol.

I have to read everything over like five times. I can't concentrate.

Because it's so strange to be in public. It's so strange to be asking myself 10k unanswerable questions about if I'm doing my best to protect my relative. Most of all, it's so strange to know Republicans and the Supreme Court saw this and said "this is fine."

So I feed my ballot to the optical scanner with a dude in a mask standing by, and then I get the hell out.

I'm so eager to get out that I MISS THE TABLE WITH THE HAND SANITIZER ON IT (which a volunteer is actually manning lol). This oversight doesn't occur to me until I'm at my car. I think about going back in, but I feel like I've escaped something, so I don't.

I then spend way too long frozen in front of my car, trying to decide if my gloves have gotten contaminated, or my photo ID, or my phone, or my mask, or...my brain. What hand do I use for my key? I don't know. I don't know anymore. I'm tired.

And remember, again: I had a privileged AF experience. If there was such a thing as a VIP voter pass, I had it. No lines, lots of volunteers around to help, a polling place close to my home, everything. And I still walked out of there feeling unsettled.

On the incredibly, incredibly unlikely chance that I caught something today and I die from it... Whatever. Sure, it'll be tragic; I'm 30; I (conceivably) have more to contribute to the world. (...that said, why the HELL am I saying this in a thread about VOTING?...) BUT -

But I made the decision aware of the risks.

The thing that will fuel me with Chernobylesque meltdown levels of lifelong rage will be if my being forced to vote this way ends up endangering my at-risk relative. She should never have to pay the price for my exercising my right to vote.

If she does get sick from this, after our weeks of careful physical distancing... I'll feel enough guilt to keep a therapist in business for years. But I hope I won't feel regret. (The two are different, I think.)

I'll end with the cheery reminder: this could happen in your state in November, and you should take some time to think about what you'd be willing to risk to vote - and what you won't or can't. Tell Congress to prioritize election protection. Wash your hands. Stay well.
/end