The Popcorn Stand: When voting, it’s paradise

I love elections. Not campaigns. Campaigns I can do without.

Everybody complains about how long, how nasty, how costly, how everything campaigns are. Me too. But when I get that sample ballot in the mail, I literally get goose bumps. I know it sounds corny, but when I get that sample ballot in the mail, it feels like democracy in action.

When my parents fill out their absentee ballots and I take them to the mailbox, I feel like I’m holding democracy in my hands.

I know the importance of early voting, but I always wait until election day to vote. For me, I want to take in the whole experience of walking into the Carson City Community Center on Nov. 8 to cast my vote. To watch democracy in action. To watch all the volunteers.

And when I get to cast my vote, I get the same feeling when I’m wearing a light jacket on a crisp fall morning taking in the colors while I walk around Spooner Lake. Does that make me weird? I don’t think so.

So as a patriotic American, I can tell you there’s no other place I’d rather be on Tuesday morning, November 8 than in the United States of America in Carson City, Nev., at the Carson City Community Center casting my vote.

It’s paradise.

— Charles Whisnand