Voting in America!

Democracy is a beautiful thing. Free and open elections are a blessing. I have been a strong advocate for participating in elections big and small ever since getting interested in politics during my government class in high school, but I think voting in this election has been the most challenging and rewarding voting experience yet! It started by having to switch my residency from Texas to Iowa only to move to Nigeria. I had to convince the Muscatine County Auditor that I couldn’t receive mail (which I didn’t think I could at the time!) and she needed to email me my ballot.

When I thankfully received it via email, I saved it to my flash drive only to find out the file had been corrupted, so I had to do it again. When I found a USB cord to hook up my printer to my computer, it didn’t work. So, I went across the road to print it at a “computer service center” since my internet café was not working for a few days. Unfortunately, after he started up his generator, booted his computer we realized that he didn’t have Adobe Acrobat Reader so I couldn’t open all the documents. I tried to explain to him the beauty of pdf files and promised him I would try to copy the program onto my jump drive (which he’d never seen before…at a “computer service center”…I was a little confused by this, but I guess that people normally just type what they want there and then print it…so much for the idea of saving!) and bring it to him so he could have it on his computer. He was interested in this and therefore changed the price to print from the completely outrageous “white person price” of about $1.50 per page to a more reasonable $.50 per page. Later, I printed the remaining 6 pages at my internet café for a “special person price” of about $.15 per page!

Since I was ridiculously excited about having my ballot, I showed it to many people…at the internet café…around my compound…at school…really anyone I came in contact with! They were all intrigued that I was able to vote in an American election even though I was residing in Nigeria. Then, they were all amazed to see the names John McCain and Barak Obama that they’d all heard about on the news on my ballot!! I then was able to get into some interesting discussions with people at school about how elections in Nigeria are completely rigged and so people become disenfranchised and don’t want to participate in the process. I encouraged them to come up with a way to change this problem…but that’s a topic for another day…

After asking around, I discovered the location of the post office and was able to take a taxi (which I’m now quite adept at hailing myself!) there. I was delighted to discover no line and some extremely welcoming employees eager to assist me! I was able to purchase envelopes there and they even provided me with glue to affix the necessary documents the outside. I put it in the “International” slot and said a prayer that it would make it to the USA and that my vote would be counted!!! (Make sure you all vote!!!)