My Polling Booth Jitters

No doubt, democracy is the best alternative. This is because it is never fair to thrust one’s unilateral authority on the unsuspecting people.  It is the only form of government in the world that helps people acquire property and promote their welfare all at the same time. Yet, the difficult part of democracy is how to secure their votes, the people's mandate, particularly in the process. 

The masses do not vote like parliamentarians do, i.e., as per the party whips, en masse, nor do they go by any sworn or secret pacts. Take the case of a unit as the family for their voters. They can be fractured, as their votes might be going in favor of more than one party candidate.  Here I say that there can be inexplicable factors that can change their voting pattern leading to bizarre outcomes as verdicts. I believe that should pose a mighty challenge for the poll analysts.

Here, I am not talking about another factor. Yes, it is not about the eligible voters absenting themselves at the voting; maybe they were taciturn, hated the elections, and had no time, or they had some better reasons known to themselves to be away from the madding crowds at the polling stations. 

You guessed it right, I wanted to dwell only on those dutiful and willing voters like yours truly, who might have some tentativeness or phobia for the polling booths.  

Well, let me present my case. Here I walked towards the polling booth. I faced the enclosure of the booth. But anxiety overtook me like any private or public enclosures other than my home of course. As if to make my resolve weaken further, someone asked me before that, to come and show my voter ID that you know would typically have a very bad picture of me, and that too was an old one, and of course, not brighter than any prisoner’s mug shot to flash so proudly. 

Next, there was one more (indelible) inky clerk who made me sign my name that amounted to my leaning forward by 45 degrees closer to that person, especially in corona times. My name was a bit extra long, and the process of signing it had loosened my innards literally and thus it unnerved me. Next, my left-hand forefinger was marked with that indelible ink which mostly dribbled (like a ‘thirunamam’) to the base of my over-chewed nail and southward to my pants. Of course, I shouldn’t have expected a beauty parlor kind of touch there from the listless artist girl- what with about half a billion voters standing in line in the hot sun that too in an unaccustomed line system whereas crowding was the norm and more homely. 

Well. By now I was through enough anxiety despite I did memorize the names of the names on the ballot whose number ran almost into an additional sheet. The booths were neatly labeled and erected as if they are presiding deities in a temple shrouded by cloth cover on three sides. I chanted under my breath the names of the parties to which my guys and gals on the list belonged. Determined not to forget any of them, I checked with my wife for one last time (although she had different choices of her own democratically speaking, albeit a very wife-like). Yet another worry ensued, where exactly in the order on the ballot did lie my chosen candidates including those who deserved my second and third preference votes. 

So standing before the box, I took a glance from the top to bottom at the list of candidates and the party symbols.  Next thing I wondered, how long I should hang about before the ballot. Any delay in making a mark in specified ink would make others (mostly my neighbors in our apartments who are in line) suspect that I was new to the system despite my age and my earlier background of being a faculty in the political science department for a while late in my career. They might mistake me that I was not that techno-savvy either, in my wits. Alas, to save my face and gain the limelight as an early bird I cast my votes a bit too fast to despatch my votes into the kitty of such a party that had a popular symbol since the picture was the easiest identification and caught my eye and hand instantly. Later I wished I had attended those training classes for the polling staff to get rid of the polling booth angst. Well, a beep followed me, after I had successfully registered my precious vote at random. 

I exited the booth proudly. Later I bragged to my friends on the phone that my votes went only to my lucky favorites. It was beside the point my marker pen never knew where it ticked during those sacred and crucial moments.