John F. Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon in 1960

This was the 15th presidential primary election I’ve voted in and the only time I actually thought that the election folks hadn’t included a ballot in the envelope.  I finally realized that the piece of paper I thought was an “instruction sheet” was the ballot with the candidates listed in a non-descript type-size amidst a lot of other nonsense that I wasn’t interested in reading.  I actually put it in the “throw-away” pile, until I realized that it MUST be the ballot and looked at it very carefully.

I don’t remember this being a problem before… but wait.  I think we used to have caucuses.  I don’t remember when that stopped.  I think that I quit being interested in Washington State presidential primaries when we went to the top two primary system which apparently is very popular with other voters.  I have to be reminded every four years that it is all about political parties at this point and not until the actual election can you vote your conscience, even if it doesn’t run to party lines. Seems all too convoluted to me.

Helen Richardson Espy, c. 1908

I am reminded of a letter written by my grandmother, Helen Richardson Espy, on Tuesday, November 3, 1914.  She was writing to her oldest child, Medora, who was away at school:

Dear Daughter:  This has been election day and some way it has been strenuous.  Papa, Mr. Stoner and Mr. Goulter have charge of the polls.  Mrs. Stoner took the men up their noon meal and I sent dinner tonight.  Our stove has been smoking to beat its record, and I had an awful time getting anything cooked.  To top it off, your three year old brother went off with little Albert Andrews today and had an undress parade right down Fourth Street.  I was so provoked.  They were not together fifteen minutes.  This happened while I was off voting.  Willard has been threatened with dire results if he went ever since their last “undress parade” so I punished him this time and think he is duly impressed.  It just goes to show that women belong at home and not at election polls.

Oysterville Schoolhouse – Our Traditional Polling Place

Despite the wry tone of the letter, my grandmother took her responsibility seriously and was undoubtedly pleased that women had won the right to vote in Washington in 1910 – a full ten years before the 19^th amendment granted that same right to women across the nation.  She was not a stranger to the political process or to the issues of the times.  She had been an active behind-the-scenes helpmate to my grandfather during his years in the Washington State Senate. In fact, in the election of 1920, she actually had her first (and maybe only) paid job working at the Oysterville polling place.

In those days (and for all subsequent years until the current mail-in-vote process), the people of the Oysterville precinct voted at the schoolhouse.  My first experience voting there occurred shortly after I had moved here full-time in 1978.  After years of voting in the anonymous-feeling polling places of suburban California, I finally felt a grassroots connectedness here.  I miss that.