Today was the advance poll for our annual TDG elections. We had the stall at The Store ready to take voters.
The executive committee thought other members should be brought into our electoral process. So we asked four high school students to spend four hours at the stall. These four had attended the workshop put on by Riverbend a few months back. Three showed up. I showed them the voters' list, the ballots, and ballot box. I explained how to do it. I watched them with a couple voters, and they seemed quite capable. I went back to my office to do some management things for the rest of the evening. Sky made a big pot of chili for them. And I bought them some junk food.
The polls closed at 8:00 pm. We had 32 voters come in! I counted the unused ballots to balance the names crossed off with the ballots in the box. No discrepancies!
"Thank you very much," I said. "Does anyone need a ride home?"
"Aren't we going to count the ballots?" said Franky.
"Yeah, I'd like to know who wins," said Kayel, "That's part of the excitement."
I said, "Well what we did last year was to just bring the voter's and ballot box out for the real election day. That worked OK, so we'll do it the same way again. Anyone need a ride?"
Franky said, "When I was at that workshop, the white people told us to look for ways to make the election seem fair. So you're gonna take the ballot box home without anyone looking inside."
Kayel added, "How do we really know the ballots won't be changed?"
I rose to my defense: "That's not likely. I have served the TDG well these past five years. I'm not going to wreck it by fixing the election."
Franky didn't back down: "You're just like the elders. You don't take young people seriously."
I'm only 10 years older than they. But that comment hurt.
I phoned Sky: "The youth want to count the ballots tonight."
"Let them."
Then I phoned Justine: "The youth don't seem to trust me with the ballot box. They want to count the votes tonight. "
"They have a point. They need to see that we are not scared of an honest election."
"But what if they leak the results. That could affect how the other voters vote."
"Eli, that seems like something the next executive committee should deal with. Let them count the votes and talk to whoever they want. We might learn something new."
So we counted the ballots. Then I gave them a ride home.
