My first memory of voting was in third grade. My teacher, Mrs. Ross, lined our class up in the hallway outside her classroom at Earl Nash Elementary School in Macon, Mississippi. While I waited, I traced the blue paint in the groove of the cinder block walls. Mrs. Ross was stern and our small “field trip” carried the appropriate air of seriousness. Our straight line moved toward the school’s middle hallway, turned right and then waited at the top of a flight of stairs.
At the foot of those stairs was our voting precinct. The wall across from the library was lined with small voting booths. Each one had three tall white sides, a pencil and a presidential ballot. The halls were quiet because “you don’t talk in the polling place.” Our teachers acted as our poll workers, checking off our names on printed sheets, handing us paper ballots and directing us to voting booths.
When it was my turn, I entered a booth and darkened my choice between George H.W. Bush/Dan Quayle and Michael Dukakis/Lloyd Bentsen. When I finished, I folded the piece of paper “hotdog style” and dropped it into a large red, white and blue box with a slit in the top. I hopped into our newly formed return line and waited patiently, taking in the flag-themed streamers and decor the school had used to decorate the area.
Later that day, they announced the winner over the intercom system and we cheered. I honestly don’t even remember who won our mock election but I do remember hearing claps and cheers throughout the halls. We were much too young to truly understand politics, but we understood the importance of voting and were excited to take part.
I was reminded of this during the Mississippi Free Press’s Trusted Elections Solutions Circle on Sept. 15 when one participant noted that their first lessons about the importance of voting came from history teachers in middle and high schools. My elementary school teachers had recognized the importance of immersing us in the process then. Today, schools and teachers are still leaving lasting civic impressions on the next generation of voters. Mock elections still happen, and I wonder whether those students will remember it the same way I do.
Institutions Were Not the Only Model for Me
My mother played her own part in my voting story. About that same time, my mother took me to the polling precinct with her. I distinctly remember her parking on the grass behind Shuqualak’s Merchants and Farmer’s Bank and walking me across the street and up the broken sidewalk. We walked into an open building beside City Hall with boring gray walls. The room looked as if it had sat vacant for the rest of the year, but it suddenly welcomed hundreds of guests on this one special day.
My mother walked up to a long white folding table, spoke to a church member working the polls, and gave another one her name and address. The lady handed my mother a piece of paper and sent her off to find a vacant booth.
Mom took her paper ballot and led me into a voting booth. She pulled the short curtain closed behind us and, after a few tries, managed to hook the paper onto silver prongs. She used a pencil-type instrument to punch her choices into the paper while quietly whispering explanations to me. When she was finished, she deposited it into an electronic voting machine before escorting me back out of the building.
My mother also provided me with my first lessons about voting laws. Before my freshman year of high school, my mother ran for the Noxubee County School Board. That year, I learned all about campaigning. I watched her canvass neighborhoods, learned about voter registration roles and sat in election team meetings.
On Election Day, I paced that same sidewalk I’d walked when my mom took me to vote with her that first time, carrying a sign that read “Vote for Jeanette Bowens for Noxubee County School Board District 4.” When my pacing took me a bit too close to the polling location, I was gently but firmly told that, by law, I had wandered too close to the polling place. Mississippi prohibits campaign materials within 150 feet of a polling-place entrance, with certain exceptions. That day I learned that there are rules that protect the voting process.
On election night, I sat for hours on the steps in the Noxubee County Courthouse waiting for the results before learning that we still wouldn’t have a solidified win until days later when the absentee ballots were counted.
We Must Show, Not Tell
Now, as a parent, my husband and I take our children to the city community center while we vote. We talk to them about the process and why voting is an important right. We have even had the “people died for your right to vote” talk with our boys. It’s what our parents did for us and what we hope they do for our grandchildren.
Yet, in our Tuesday night circle, I became slightly worried that I wasn’t doing enough. One young participant said that people in her age group have said that they don’t vote because they don’t feel like their vote matters. They don’t believe that their single vote makes any difference in the electoral process and they are frustrated with a political system that doesn’t seem to take their views into account.
I’ve since wondered where in our lives that type of voter apathy takes hold. Two summers ago, when the Mississippi Youth Media Project did their election summer stories, I worked with a group of teens that cared about their civic duty. They understood that the future lies in their choices and fully grasped the need to be a part of the decision-making process. They even helped one of our rising seniors register to vote. It brought the process full circle for me as both a teacher and a journalist and I was proud and hopeful. So to hear that the excitement that bubbled around a gray table in our office might die somewhere in the next decade of their lives was disturbing.
The conversation centered around ideas to encourage younger voters. There were talks of tapping into the state’s football culture for advertisements and finding ways to make civic participation feel less like a duty and more like a part of who they are.
I’ve thought a lot about voting since that night and I’ve come to one realization. No one convinced me to care about voting. They showed me.
Mrs. Ross showed me in third grade. My mother showed me in a little voting booth next to City Hall. I wasn’t persuaded by an ad. I watched the people I loved and trusted participate in the process and teach it to me.
Now I find myself doing the same thing with another generation. Years later, I am showing my children by taking them with me to vote. Our newsroom showed our YMP students when we helped students complete a voter registration application.
Maybe the question is not how we convince young people that their vote matters. Maybe we should ask them what they have seen the adults around them do.
Have they seen us vote? Have they heard us talk about local elections, not just presidential ones? Have we made voting something they can see, touch and experience rather than something we only tell them is important?
Because someday, my children and their peers will stand in a polling place without us. When they do, I hope they don’t have to wonder whether their voice matters, because we’ve already shown them it does.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
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