My First Time

Like most people, I was excited and nervous my first time. I don’t remember much about it; however, I recall vividly the lead-up to and time after. It was quite a big step in my life as I was 20 and barely missed doing it when I was 18. It was quite a topic of conversation across the nation.

I am, of course, talking about my first time voting.

Politics came early to me. My grandfather was the Circuit Clerk and Recorder of deeds for Osage County for 20+ years, the longest to hold the office to date. Since I was old enough to walk, I went to the old school house with my mom, grandparents, or uncle Willie to vote. I couldn’t vote, but I saw them do it. My family made it very clear that voting was important. I followed elections at all levels of government growing up and waited for my chance to participate in democracy.

My first time voting came in 2000. George Bush, Jr. and Al Gore were running for president. I was a junior in college and enrolled in political science. My classmates and I discussed the election before and after class. We debated the issues, chewed over the candidate platforms, and shared the latest news. Much to our chagrin, our political science instructor did not address the events of that election in her class, so we took it upon ourselves to explore them.

I lived in Springfield, MO, at the time. Most remember that election for the contested presidential race. However, I remember it most for the Missouri Senate race between Mel Carnahan, the then Governor of Missouri, and John Ashcroft, former Missouri Governor and U.S. Attorney General and then Senator for Missouri. On October 16, 2000, Carnahan died tragically in a plane crash, just three weeks before the November 7th election. Under Missouri State Law, Carnahan’s name remained on the ballot.

I am proud to say that I voted for the dead guy in my first election…and 22 years later, I am still with Mel.

Carnahan won the election with 50% of the vote, beating the incumbent Ashcroft’s 48%. The margin of victory was about 49,000 votes. Carnahan was the first dead man elected to the Senate in U.S. history. Jean Carnahan, Mel Carnahan’s wife, was appointed to the seat and served for two years until Missouri held a special election.

Electing the first dead Missouri Senator wasn’t even the most exciting thing that happened in that election. SCOTUS eventually decided the presidential election in Bush v Gore, making George W. Bush the 43rd president of the United States. The phrase “hanging chads” still triggers flashbacks.

The past several elections have been as eventful as the first one I voted in more than two decades ago. Since then, we’ve experienced a heavily divided nation, voter disenfranchisement, human rights roll-back, systemic attack on workers and labor unions, and an insurrection on January 6, 2021. The former president and his supporters perpetuate the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. That same former president (allegedly) took records from his time in office to his private residence in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. The Democracy Matrix Project, funded by the German Research Foundation, classifies the United States as a Deficient Democracy. The U.S. ranks 36th out of 176 countries evaluated. The Democracy Matrix and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index have downgraded our democratic rating several times over the past few years. WMDs (weapons of mass destruction for any young Millennials/Gen Z reading this), Citizen’s United, 9/11, Shelby County v Holder, Woe overturned, the rise of white supremacy, Black Lives Matter…it sounds like an updated version of We Didn’t Start the Fire.

Our nation is at a critical turning point in testing the gentlemen’s agreement that is our democracy. Before, the desire to uphold and honor the foundations of our democracy was a touchstone we could all return to when discussing our differences. Today, we don’t even have that. The loopholes in our democracy are showing and some are bent on taking advantage of them. We have an atmosphere of distrust as a result. We only trust those who think as we do. Without trust, there can be no cooperation or collaboration to address the foundational problems that became apparent in the last eight years.

The U.S. has definitely lost its status as the shining city on a hill.

If this election goes in a particular direction, unions, women and LGBTQIA rights, and separation of church and state (among other things) could be a thing of the past. The educational system in this country is already heavily degraded after decades of budget cuts and more than a few poor decisions (No Child Left Behind, a heavy focus on standardized testing and curriculum, Betsy DeVos, etc.). I have never felt more uncertain about my livelihood and rights than I do now.

Despite all the changes that have occurred since my first time voting in November 2000, I will do the same thing now that I did then: research the issues and candidates, vote, and encourage others to vote.

And if the dead guy is the better candidate, I will vote for him again.