Old enough to vote!

There I was. I was 18 years old and I could finally vote in elections. It was a day I was looking very forward to. 1982 was the year of the Gubernatorial election in New Mexico. I couldn't vote in the primary, because my birthday is in September, but I was geared up for the general election.

When I went to the first meeting in the Student Senate, they told us that it was the last day to register to vote. I filled out the paperwork and looked forward to 11/02/82.

This is something I have to confess about myself. I actually registered as a Republican. This was during the Reagan administration, so I thought that the Republicans were the political party that were really on the ball. Besides that, I would rather be an elephant than a donkey.

My Mom was furious when she found out! She told me my grandfather would be rolling over in his grave if he knew I had registered as a Republican! This came as a surprise to me because all throughout my childhood, my parents never had one political discussion with me or Loyd. I actually had no idea which party they preferred. They wouldn't even tell me who they voted for in the Presidential elections. This was really perplexing, considering they knew I was rooting for Gerald Ford in 1976. (I even had a poster of him in my bedroom. See, I told you I was a loser.)

The worst part about this is that I didn't find out until much later in my life about the fundamental differences between Republicans and Democrats. After learning about them, I changed my registration to "No Party Affiation." I agree with Democrats and Republicans on a number of separate issues, but I have more disagreements with them. At any rate, I still somewhat identify as a Republican and when I hear all the terrible things Democrats say about them, it does sting me a little.

Anyway, back to Election Day. There were voting machines set up in the Campus Union Building. I thought this was where I was supposed to vote. I went up and told them my name. They didn't have my name on their list. They asked me where I lived. I told them I was in Lincoln Hall. "Oh, you're voting at the Methodist Student Center." This didn't make sense. Why wouldn't they just have all the students who lived in the dorms vote at the CUB? Everybody from school went there almost every day. It would have been very convenient to have everyone vote there and increase turnout from the campus. Not to mention that there are some people who probably didn't want to set foot in the Methodist Clubhouse.

But before I went over there, they checked the records. They found that I wasn't registered to vote. Apparently, even though we were told in Student Senate that it was the last day to register, it was actually the day before. I wasn't permitted to vote. I was stunned. I wasn't going to have a voice in who got elected to be the next Governor. And the guy who did get elected, Toney Anaya, made a lot of people mad during his four years in office. (Back then, incumbent governors were not permitted to run for the next term. This is why we had Bruce King every other four years several times. That was actually a good policy. It forced the Governor to focus on the job at hand and not be distracted by a re-election campaign during the last year.)

But if my late registration was bad for me, it was worse for many others who had registered on time. Someone who registered a lot of students on campus lost all the forms. This was discovered when one person re-registered under her married name, but they had no record of it. Fortunately, she was able to vote under her maiden name, but everyone else was not so lucky.

So, I wouldn't get to vote until 1984 when the next Presidential race was held. I wasn't able to vote in the primary because I was registered in Portales but was living in Artesia with my parents that summer. I didn't know anything about absentee voting. In the general election in November, I voted for Reagan. I have no idea who my parents voted for.

The funny thing is that both my parents registered as Republicans in the 1990's. I go into a little more detail about my Mom's experience with that on my old A Liberal Christian project.

I have voted in every single election since then. At no time were any of the elections I participated in decided by one vote.