2 Reasons I Might Not Vote This Year
Joe Biden is going to lose — big — if we continue to ignore the major barriers standing between women and the ballot box this year. In my household, these barriers are named Annie and Bo, and they’re 2 and 6 years old. As Melinda Gates put it in an op-ed this summer, the pandemic crisis disproportionately affects women, especially women with children. Childcare is scarce, grandparents must stay at a distance, and chores pile up faster when everyone is at home. Not to mention the number of women who are essential workers on healthcare frontlines, in the classroom or teaching on Zoom, or caring for the elderly. It’s added up to a whole lot of burnout. And that’s coming through in the polls.
Women are looking for a change, bigly, judging by the gender gap across the country. Women are polling Biden +17 in Wisconsin, +19 in Florida, and +30 in Pennsylvania. Even in Georgia, women prefer Biden by a 10% margin. However, Trump is winning among men in each battleground state. In Wisconsin, Trump is up by 5% among men. In Florida he’s up 16% among men. In Pennsylvania, he’s polling +6 among men. North Carolina +10%. In Georgia he’s up by 12. Historically, women have showed up at the polls with greater frequency than men. But here’s the rub: answering a pollster’s call is something a mom can do from home. Getting to a polling place in the pandemic with kids at home may be a different story.
In Georgia, moms with kids in “virtual school” live in…you guessed it: democratic counties. Our republican neighbors’ kids are in school, in person across the state. The four largest metro Atlanta school systems are virtual and will remain that way until after the election.
98% of the Georgia school districts in counties that Trump carried in 2016 are in-school, in-person. Just 13% of the democratic-majority counties are.
When the media talks about “turning Georgia blue” with the support of “suburban moms,” they are talking about moms who are working with their kids at home trying to learn. They are talking about single moms with kids at home trying to learn. Before the pandemic, women were doing 2.5x the amount of unpaid domestic work that men. When the pandemic hit, the total amount of work went up as we lost school, childcare and grandparents. Sure, men are doing more, but an order of magnitude less than women, which means that we have even less child-free time in our days. I’m lucky enough to have my six year old in private school, but my two year old is at home because his preschool was cancelled for the year.
Vote absentee, my mom says.
In August, I printed out the form, put it on the counter, promptly spilled coffee on it, and then used it to write down a tracking number and my daughter’s homework. Then I brought it to my office to email the teacher and shoved it in a drawer off-handedly when my two year old toddled into my white-carpeted office bringing me a bowl full of chocolate milk. Needless to say, when my husband asked if “we” (as in, “the royal we”) were registered to vote absentee, I said yes. Then about two weeks later, I found the sheet crumpled in my drawer. Past the deadline.
So we are going to vote early. Yes, we are. We are angry and we are going to vote!
I am going to postpone work for the day, find a babysitter who doesn’t have Covid, hope my kids don’t come down with colds, and go wait in a crowded unventilated room for an hour or more to cast my vote. And if I don’t get things organized enough to do that in the next two weeks, I am going to drag my kids to our polling place in masks and wait with the 1,000 other Atlanta democrats who refuse to have our votes suppressed on November 3. I’ll apologize to the people in line when my two year old runs his truck up their legs, and my daughter asks me for the hundredth time how long this is going to take. Or maybe when I am gearing up to do it, to do the one thing I have been waiting to do for the last four years, the dog will escape out the front door and my husband will have a work emergency and my child will run a fever…and I’ll miss my chance.
What can you do to help #momsvote?
- Volunteer to watch a neighbor’s kids while she votes (especially if you’ve already had Covid); even better, order dinner for the kids!
- If you live with a mom, help her make a plan to vote, and watch the kids while she does (Dads, I’m talking to you!)
- Post on NextDoor / Facebook / Instagram the poll wait time when you go to the polls (a three hour line is a scary thing to moms who are living in ten minute increments)
- Spread the word that 1–2 kids will be allowed inside to vote with you (don’t forget their masks too!). Put toddlers and babies in a carrier if you can. Here’s a great article with helpful FAQs for parents and voting.
- Partner with another mom and trade off watching the kids while you each vote — meet at the polls!
- Talk to your church or school about helping moms get to the polls
I have every intention to vote. I also have every intention to take a shower today, but you know….2020.
Calling a babysitter right now. Right after I clean up dinner and fold the laundry.
