BY ELIZABETH HERRING
It has been said, "If you want something done, give it to a busy person."
That phrase must have influenced the county auditor when he asked me if I’d take the job of Rural Registration Officer for our precinct.
The woman who had handled this had moved, and they needed someone right away as it was a presidential election year and registration would be heavy.
Since the job didn’t require me to leave my busy household — but rather have prospective voters come to me — I agreed to try it. The woman whom I was replacing had only a few years earlier registered me as a voter — with me swearing "to fully and truly answer such questions as may be asked, touching your qualifications as a voter, under the laws of this state." In the years to come, I was to solemnly intone those words to hundreds of patriotic citizens and to this day I still feel a brief stab of emotion each time I request that declaration.
Those were busy years for my husband and me, as we were self-employed. He often put in 12-hour days at our next-door service station, and my days were the proverbial "woman’s work is never done" kind. The prospective voter often had to wait a few minutes while I diapered a baby or established a little one in a safe highchair with a handful of Kix to quite him during the brief ceremony. I never figured out why so many people chose our dinner hour to complete the task.
I have always liked people and thoroughly enjoyed the brief contacts with those to came by to register.
One day I met Mr. and Mrs. Day, and Mr. Day confided that with the saying of "I do" on their wedding day they had changed Knight into Day, as his wife’s maiden name was Knight.
Later that afternoon a friendly young couple signed the oaths and I noticed that his first name was Adam and hers was Eva.
Among several questions to be asked the signers, naturally, was their age. They answered with varying degrees of pride — from those "21 today" to hesitancy among middle age matrons. Only one person flatly refused to tell. Her graying hair and no-longer-young features gave me definite assurance that she had long since reached the legal voting age. It was not required that we register their exact age, but only that they swear that they will be 21 years of age on the next election day. (The legal voting age in Washington state was changed to 18 in 1974.) So, we went cheerfully on to the next questions.
Another question to be answered was, "Have you ever been convicted of an infamous crime?" That was followed by, "If so, have your citizenship rights been restored?"
I got many comic answers to the first question, the most common being something about "got a ticket for over-parking." One dear old gentleman teasingly said, "Mama got locked up for shoplifting once." And Mama, fearing that I would take him seriously, nearly died of embarrassment and hastened to assure me that "Papa was an awful tease."
But one day a handsome man said "yes" to the first question and I realized he was not joking. His response to the next question also was "yes." When he signed the final line, I hesitantly but tactfully asked him if he’d mind explaining the restoration of the voting rights.
My indoctrination into this position had not included this information, and I’ll admit I was somewhat embarrassed at my lack of knowledge. Elizabeth Herring, 87, lives in Marysville. She said she was paid about 20 cents for each person she registered to vote. She originally wrote this article about 40 years ago while taking a writing class from Mildred Bierman, who had a book published about that time and who still lives in the Marysville area.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
