gnomi | Another Perspective on Voting (Reply)

So tonight, as I was leaving work, I ran into a coworker in the elevator. And talking to him gave me a whole new perspective on this election thingy we're doing here. As we got on the elevator, he asked me if I'd voted yet today, and I said yes. I asked him what he thought of the whole election, and he said he found it interesting. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" I asked, and he reminded me that he'd come to the company (and the country) at this time in 2000, just in time for the last election. "But not in China," he continued. He went on to explain that in China, at the local level, they have actual contested elections. But at the Province level and above, the government gives them the list of people to vote for. Sometimes, he says, they take pictures while you vote to make sure you vote for the people the government wants you to. And then they sometimes make you take a loyalty oath, right there at the polls. He says, though, that there is a movement to introduce fairer elections to China, to introduce freer election standards. "They're still learning about them," he told me.

And it just made me think. This morning, I went to my local polling place and cast votes for the people I wanted to. No one watched me vote, no one took my photo while I was voting. No one made me sign any sort of pledge of loyalty to one side or another. I am a female member of a minority religion, and in this country my vote is just as valid as anyone else's.

And I have to keep that in mind.