Where's my sticker?!

There are a few things that are less satisfying about voting absentee. For one thing, I don't get a sticker.

For another, one of the coolest things about voting in my home district in Virginia was always how the poll workers who checked my name off on the list would always tell me which other members of my family had already been by. Not that I'll get that when I finally accept that I might actually be a New Yorker and register here, but it did always make me proud to be a part of the process, and a part of my family.

One thing is just as much fun though. The ballot. The act of voting. When you vote absentee in Virginia's first district, you get a big fat envelope with a bunch of other envelopes in it. The ballot is sealed into one of them, and when you have your witness to hand, you open it, unfold the big scantron sheet and use your trusty #2 pencil to fill in the dots for the candidates you like. Then you refold the ballot, insert it into the smaller envelope and ask your witness to sign it. That assembly goes into yet another envelope, pre-addressed, and you stamp and mail. The whole process gives me great joy.

But I still wish I got a sticker.