So I just voted, and I must say, I'm a little disappointed.  Not because I was disenfranchised (that I know of), but mostly because of the elaborate fantasy I'd built up in my head wasn't fulfilled.

I decided this summer to change my voter registration from California to New York, where I've been going to school the past three years.  When I started hearing from my old state about the ballot measures that threaten gay marriage and reproductive rights, I felt more than a little guilty for the switch.  I figured it was too late to change my registration back, until my Mom called me about two weeks ago to say my absentee ballot had just come in the mail.  I called both the New York and California Election Boards and found out I was double registered.  "Just remember to only vote once!" a woman cheerily told me in Oakland as she hung up the phone.  Vote once I did, but not with much confidence in our system.

Here's how it was supposed to go: there's a long line outside the door of the polling place.  I am, as usual, one of the only white people in my neighborhood, but I experience a great, I'm-such-a-progressive-bleeding-heart-liberal feeling as I make friends with two elderly black women in line.  They tell me about living through segregation and the civil rights movement, and we bask in the historic-ness of it all.  Before we go in to cast the most important ballot of our lives, we all hug.  The oldest woman has tears in her eyes, grabs me by the shoulders and says she never thought she'd see the day when we could vote for a black man for president, and when the one white girl in the neighborhood would be wearing a button with his face.

As it turns out, there was no line, and it's illegal to wear a button to a polling place.  While I was the only white girl in the room, my somewhat creepy attempts to make friends with the black elderly women monitoring the polls is politely brushed off.

I read a Rolling Stones article that said statistically, the poorer and blacker your neighborhood is, the older and crappier the voting machines.  This certainly proved to be true as a poll worker showed me how to pull a squeaky lever and flick a series of what look like black light switches to cast your vote.  The machine is so weird to someone used to things made in the last 20 years, that the poll worker checked in on me halfway through to see if I needed help.  I'm pretty sure pulling back the curtain on someone is illegal, but I appreciated her help nonetheless.

It's funny to see your supposedly complicated and developed beliefs reduced to a series of 'X' s that run in a straight line down the Democratic side of the ticket.  Had I done research on the eight judges I was voting for? No, this supposedly informed voter just voted for the eight Democrats down the ticket and then pulled the stiff lever back to its upright and locked position. Ah, democracy in action.

Still, even if my voting fantasy wasn't fulfilled and I have no new Grandmother figures inviting me to tea, I'm glad I got to flick those switches.  The image of those' X's will stay with me a long time, even if only as a reminder to challenge my ideas and use my civil liberties everyday. 

Keep up with the latest from Youth Radio. Follow @youthradio on Twitter. Live your digital life on Facebook? Become a fan of YMI-Youth Media International and get updates delivered right to your page.