hanging chads

I had a blog post all written and wittily titled that languished in my email because I don’t like messing around with my blog at work, while typing in a word document seems like a perfectly legitimate use of time. But that one was boring anyway. It was about moving, which is just slightly more interesting to read about than it is to actually do. And the whole move can really be summed up thusly: it is not yet done, it may never truly be done, and the $500 we saved not hiring movers doesn’t change the fact that I have never been in such pain ever, even after I ran a marathon four days after defending my dissertation.

 But I’m not going to talk about that. Today I want to talk about voter ID laws.

 I know that we feminists (and especially academics) are supposed to reject any consideration of changing oneself for a man, and I agree! Women should not change for men. But, antiquated as it seems, Steve and I want to make babies someday and I want us all to have the same name. So I decided to take his last name. Did I think about my feminist forebears as I sat at the DMV? Sure. Did I feel slightly guilty that I was betraying a foundational tenet of a belief system I hold dear? Absolutely. But deep down, I’m with Shakespeare on this one, and whatever people call me, I’ll always smell as sweet (or, given that the laundry facilities in the new place are down, as whiffy.) So it was the right decision for me.

But there was another, more defiant (if you can call it that) motivation. Since I got married, I’ve been genuinely afraid that if I changed my name I would end up disenfranchised like the 900,000 other people in our fair state whose picture IDs do not exactly match their registrations. It sounds silly but consider this: One of my coworker’s wives (who has volunteered every year as a poll worker back too far to count) could technically be in trouble because she spells her name Diann, which is what’s printed on her voter registration. But on her driver’s license, it’s spelled Dianne, whether through oversight or error or whatever. She got a letter from the state informing her she needed to resolve this issue before she could vote. (Ironically, because she’s lead poll worker, any appeal or question of identity at the polling place would technically go to her, but that’s really not the point.) Other people in the office—who are also extremely politically active and vote religiously—received similar notifications. Many of these discrepancies are of a married name/maiden name variety. So it was with no little trepidation that I relinquished my secure status as a “legitimate” voter.

But I realized that by NOT changing my name I was letting the Republican A-holes in my state capital win. They wanted to brow beat women (and poor people and the elderly) into not voting—or failing that, making it so their votes don’t count—but standing on principle is only going to get me so far, and letting their stupid laws change the way I would normally live my life only gives them more power.

I was satisfied to see that I was not alone in this mentality. The DMV being the DMV (or as they now call it the DOT) was naturally packed, but in addition to the 16-year-old crowd, the new residents and the inner-city crack addicts looking for a place to pass the time, there were numerous 90+ year old women alongside me—some in wheelchairs(!)—also verifying that they have what it takes to vote. I’m sure that for every one who was there, there are four more who can’t access her birth certificate or doesn’t have the two hours/$13.50/ride downtown necessary to make it happen. But it warmed my heart to see so many old ladies with the same screw-you Gov. Jackwad attitude I had! (Plus, their walkers took up a lot of space and they moved REALLY slowly, which annoyed all the state employees, which amused me.)

 Ok, so back to my real point. Sure on the surface complying with an asinine law doesn’t seem like a defiant act, but, as much as my coworkers might disagree, it’s not all lawsuits and protests rallies. The best way to not become disenfranchised is to not become disenfranchised. Not everyone has that luxury, obviously, but for those who do, we just gotta keep voting—and maybe whacking poll workers (but not Diann!) with our canes. I always dreamed of someday becoming a cranky old lady, and now by virtue of the company I keep, I’d like to believe I may have finally achieved this goal.