There is a barbecue place I drive to a few times a year, and I have never once walked straight in. The line starts before they open and wraps around the building by noon. Men stand in it with their hats on and their children on their shoulders. Nobody complains. Everybody understands that the line is how you know the brisket is worth it.
I bring this up because every election season somebody writes about how long it takes some people to vote. They show pictures of folks standing outside in the evening, waiting their turn. The pictures are meant to make me angry. They make me proud. I see people who wanted something enough to wait for it.
I am suspicious of anything that comes too easy. When voting gets too convenient, you get people voting who had not really thought about it. A man who will stand in line for hours has thought about it. He has given up an afternoon, maybe a shift, maybe the pay that came with it. That is a sacrifice, and sacrifice is how we show what we value. I would not want to take that from him.
A fellow from church who lives on the other side of town tells me the wait over there is a good deal longer than mine. I have no reason to doubt him. But I would point out that the barbecue place does not open a second location just because the people on the other side of town have to drive farther. It knows what it is. It lets you come to it.
My own polling place is a church fellowship hall a few minutes from the house. I usually walk in, vote, and say hello to the ladies at the table. I will confess I have sometimes felt I was missing something. There is a kind of character that gets built in a long line, and I have never had the chance to build it. I envy those folks a little.
People who want to make voting easier always talk about convenience. I would like to hear more about effort. Our grandparents walked to school. They did not ask the school to come to them. Some things are meant to be earned, and I cannot think of anything more worth earning than a say.
This fall’s election will come, and the lines will form where they always form, and the pictures will go around again. I will look at them and feel what I always feel. I will cast my own vote in that fellowship hall for the Republican for Senate, partly so the lines stay what they are. I have the impression the other side would like to make the wait across town shorter, and I would hate to take that sacrifice away from anybody.
It is a fine thing to stand in line for your country. I am grateful there are people willing to do it for me.
D. M.