Labeling Voters

Journal

No matter who you support, vote this June 3. Otherwise, you’re the loser.

ALL OF US WEAR a multitude of labels——descriptors that define and describe our selves. There are those who know me as a writer, father, glory-days baseball player and annoying teller of marginally funny jokes. There’s a less-visible label I wear very proudly, albeit sporadically, but always when called upon. I am a voter. Hold an election, and I’ll be there to fill in a box or poke out some chad.

It’s a patriotic right, and also a responsibility. This is something I believed even back in 1976, when I was too young to vote. So I bet fifth-grade classmate Stephanie Kitt that Jimmy Carter would take the presidency. To the victor go the spoils. Ms. Kitt promptly paid up in grape Bubble Yum.

Growing up on the East Coast, I usually accompanied my parents to the polls. In Maryland, we had voting machines——large metal structures you entered, with a lever you pulled so a curtain closed behind you. Remembering that, I still shake my head on San Diego election days. The cardboard stands we vote on are so Motel 6, compared to the Ritz-Carlton voting booths of my youth.

Location may be the key with real estate, but the same doesn’t apply for polling places. Even without moving, mine has changed nearly every election. I’ve trooped to an East Village homeless shelter to cast my ballot. One year, I voted on the bay——aboard the 1898 steam ferry Berkeley, part of the San Diego Maritime Museum. Given the desired separation of church and state, a house of worship seemed an unlikely place to vote. Nonetheless, there I was a few years ago, doing my patriotic duty in a Third Avenue church. For the February presidential primary, I found my way to the Balboa Club. Located in Balboa Park, this is the Sixth Avenue home to a chess club. Mistakenly, I’d first headed to the Redwood Bridge Club, another squatty building up the street, where I’d voted years before.

If informed that my polling place for the June 3 primary is a breaching humpback whale off the Coronado Islands, I will be only mildly surprised. But not deterred.

I’ll walk, drive or snorkel to any voting location. And though I bear no ill will toward any race, creed, gender, religion or any Major League Baseball predilection (except the Yankees), if you are someone who does not vote, I’ll look down on you. I am a voting snob. Those San Diego County registered voters who took a powder on February 5——that’s 40 percent of you, more than 500,000 folks——have no excuse. Did a half-million San Diegans get sick that day, have car trouble or get distracted after pulling a weak swimmer out of a riptide?

WHY DIDN’T YOU VOTE? You forgot? The Food Network was doing an all-day retrospective on Rachael Ray? Oh, you sprained your ankle? Did you know there are voting rules in place that aid the disabled, as well as the blind?

If you are unable to mark your ballot personally, you may be assisted by up to two people of your choice (excluding your employer, your labor union leader or their agents). This is right off the San Diego Registrar of Voters’ Web site. If a polling place is not accessible, you may approach as near as possible to the voting area and ask a poll worker to provide “curbside voting.” The poll worker will bring the voting materials to you.

Habla Español, Filipino/Tagalog or Vietnamese? The ballot is available in four languages. And audiocassettes of state and local ballot pamphlets exist to allow blind and visually impaired voters access to the summaries of candidates. These cassettes are available from libraries, the Braille Institute and the office of the Registrar of Voters——at no cost.

How can you not vote, knowing blind, English-as-a-second-language and disabled people are going to such lengths? Oh, the humanity.

Even if you haven’t left the house since getting those new video games for Christmas, you can still vote——between games of Wii tennis, and without even leaving the living room. All registered voters can vote by mail ballot. Just download an application form from the Registrar’s Web site (sdvote.com).

“Since it became legal in 2000, we’ve seen a huge increase in people who have become permanent voters by mail,” says San Diego Registrar of Voters Deborah Seiler. The term “absentee vote” has gone by the wayside. Mail-in votes were 40 percent of the February election. Seiler thinks that could hit 50 percent next go-round.

Especially regarding mail-in votes, here are some important deadlines for the June 3 election:

May 5. First day mail ballots are available.

May 11. Mother’s Day. What better way to show Mom you love her than a dozen roses and her own mail ballot?

May 20. Last day to register to vote.

May 26. Memorial Day. If we don’t vote, don’t the terrorists win?

May 27. Last day to apply for a mail ballot.

May 30. Assistant to Registrar of Voters goes to Costco with a forklift for a pallet of Red Bull for the office.

May 31–June 1. Weekend voting is available at the Registrar of Voters office (5201 Ruffin Road, Suite I; 858-565-5800), 8 a.m.–5 p.m.

ON JUNE 3, I’ll be wearing one of those “I VOTED” stickers. Yes, it’s a label. It’s also a visual indicator that I care enough about the way the city is run that I could spare 20 minutes out of my busy year.

“I VOTED” will mean I weighed in on the mayor’s race. Incumbent Jerry Sanders is being challenged by businessman Steve Francis. A couple of years ago, Mayor Sanders won the job of trying to fix the city’s pension deficit. Francis is spending millions of his own dollars to assume that headache.

City Attorney Mike Aguirre is being challenged by Judge Jan Goldsmith, lawyer Amy Lepine and termed-out City Councilmen Scott Peters and Brian Maienschein. Aguirre is a fists-flying, lawsuit-generating, Don Quixote–meets–Tasmanian Devil ball of fury. Goldsmith appears to be Aguirre’s exact polar opposite. Lepine is a former Aguirre employee who is suing him for sexual harassment. And Peters and Maienschein are a couple of the guys who helped create the pension deficit but, b’gosh and b’golly, have learned from the mistake. There’s marquee drama in this one.

And there are four San Diego City Council seats up for grabs. The odd ones. Well, Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 are wide open, with nary an incumbent in sight. Former TV Troubleshooter Marti Emerald is squaring off in District 7 with political accounting machine April Boling. Think-tank president Carl De Maio is paired in District 5, by George, with redundantly monikered candidate George George. And in District 3, gay candidates Todd Gloria and Stephen Whitburn seem straighter arrows than candidate and former councilmember John Hartley, who was arrested after he allegedly urinated in public and gave too much of a show to a potential voter. Surely you’ve got an opinion on which of these contenders ought to be making our civic decisions.

I asked Registrar Seiler if she’d like to scold citizens who don’t vote. She chose the high road. “That’s not for me to do,” she says. “We just like to provide information, show how easy it is to vote and point out there are a lot of resources that can be taken advantage of.”

Register. Vote. Show off your sticker. Even if your candidates lose, you’ll be labeled a winner. For the stickerless on June 3, don’t let me catch you complaining about local government.

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