Vox dei

As everyone on the planet knows, it’s Election Day here in America, the last chance that states controlled by Republicans have to disenfranchise voters who they fear might not cast their ballots for Republican candidates. This exercise has been a bit of a challenge as some of those jurisdictions have had early voting, and they’ve been forced to find multiple long-term ways of closing polling places, limiting hours and otherwise harassing the electorate into giving up.

California, of course, would not be one of these states. In California, you get voting materials in multiple languages (in Los Angeles County that would be Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Vietnamese, Khmer, Thai and Hindi), and they’ve been encouraging voting by mail for a long time. Whenever I went to my polling place in the Valley They Call Silicon, I’d very often be the only person there, surrounded by eight precinct workers overjoyed to have something to do. I often had to stop them tearing off half a roll of “I voted” stickers; they were just so pleased to have someone to give them to.

(In the Commonwealth of Virginia, on the other hand, if you want to cast your ballot before Election Day, you have to basically get a note from your mommy explaining why you should be excused from the long lines and scrutiny of Republican poll monitors. Like you’re going to be in another continent, or will be undergoing triple bypass surgery. If you’re performing triple bypass surgery, you still have to vote in person.)

So when I considered my electoral options this year, I called the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters and requested an absentee ballot.

Because—aside from everything else—no state in the country gives such good ballot as California.

This is because of the state’s practice of submitting initiatives (voter-originated) and referenda (legislature-originated) measures to the general electorate for us to approve or dustbin. You know: vox populi, vox dei.

Every election I’ve ever experienced in California has had at least one proposition about marijuana and one about prisons. Without fail. This year is no different. Proposition 64 is asking for the legalization of recreational marijuana, Propositions 62 and 66 are to do with the death penalty and Proposition 57 is about criminal sentencing, parole and juvenile criminal proceedings.

There’s also a measure (Prop. 60) requiring actors in porn films to use condoms; one (Prop. 56) directing cigarette tax income to fund healthcare tobacco use prevention, research and law enforcement; and one (Prop. 63) restricting the size of gun magazines that can be sold in the state. (Man, I am not sorry to be missing the NRA-funded ads on that one.)

Ditto the Big Pharma propaganda against Prop. 61, which puts caps on prices the state will pay for drugs. Between anti-Prop. 63 and Prop. 61 ads, enough money will have been dropped up and down the state to build and equip state-of-the-art K-12 schools into the next decade. But instead it’ll go to trying to bamboozle the electorate.

America, goniff.

Here’s the one this time around that I’m most tickled about: Proposition 59. That’s the one that instructs whichever Congressmorons we send to Washington to use their authority to overturn the Citizens United decision, via whatever means necessary, up to and including a constitutional amendment.

Yes, I know that it’s more symbolic than actionable—serving much the same purpose as a warning shot across the bow or the rattle of a diamondback. But California has been a bellwether state for decades, and as she goes, eventually so goes the nation. This is a way of serving notice that we are mad as hell and we’re not fixing to take it much longer.

But here’s something else I love about California: both candidates for the US Senate are Democrats, women and the daughters of immigrants. (Kamala Harris’s parents from India and Jamaica, Loretta Sanchez’s from Mexico.) My choices for the House of Representatives are both Asian-American, one who’s been doing a great job already and one who wants to undo it all.

I also love that, even though the Registrar of Voters has never once got my name spelt right (even after one of the many people I spoke with throughout September and October keyed in the correct spelling), no one has ever tried to use that anomaly to try to turf me out of the polling place. All this “voter fraud” crap? Not California, baby.

So, commiserations to those who have to put up with the shenanigans of those who’ve forgotten that this republic was founded in reaction to arrogant and autocratic politicians, and deep thanks to your perseverance in making your will known by whatever means your jurisdiction has set forth. They may not be listening; they may in fact need their hearing checked. Today is the day when We the People have our say.

And We the People of California get to say a whole freakin’ lot.