From 5 & 12 November 2008

A Tale of Two Elections

I've had the song "Oh Happy Day" stuck in my head since Wednesday morning. Despite fivethirtyeight.com's electoral prediction, which was after all accurate, I'm in shock. I cannot believe America not only elected a Black man as President, but elected him in a very clear majority. He got more Jewish votes than Kerry did in 2004. He won Ohio. He won Virginia. HE WON INDIANA.

After a long time waiting, my official ballot finally came in the mail. I rain off to send it back to DC, only to face a barrage of questions from the female clerk at the counter (whose hair, along with that of Arab teenage boys, further proved my theory that the Middle East is the final repository of the Jheri curl). “Wow, this is for the elections! Isn’t it late to be voting now?” began the barrage of questions in Hebrew: “Who are you voting for?” “Why?” “How do you say official results in English?”
Then the questions turned into personal favors, the clerk knowing better than to release a native English speaker before she’s satiated her linguistic needs. “What is this term in English?” explaining a phrase that seemed rather important to her job yet up until now totally unknown in English. I had never heard of it, so I passed. “Wait! I have one more question. Can you translate this thing I got and tell me what it’s for?” She proceeds to get her purse and extract two samples of Clinique moisturizer. I tell her they’re both skin moisturizers, even though the round container looks like it should be for eyes. She thanks me and I flee the scene.

Election Day commenced with work, a much needed nap and off to watch the results with friends. After a few episodes of The West Wing and some political but civil jabbing at one another’s presidential preferences, I offered a toast over kosher Spanish sparkling wine, celebrating democracy on America's election day and Israel's civil anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.

It wasn’t until Pennsylvania was called, then eventually Virginia and Ohio that reality began to sink in. Watching CNN's live coverage from Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and then Obama's speech in Chicago, choked up and at a loss for words at 7am, I came up with the following senitment I thought I would never say, certainly after the last eight years: I have never been more proud to be an American.

Exactly one week later, it was my first Election Day as an Israeli ctizen. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and most cities & towns were to go to the polls to elect their mayor, town- and regional councils. In Jerusalem the stakes couldn’t have been higher, though most polls predicted a win for Nir Barkat, the “secular” candidate, a businessman from the hi-tech industry.

The day started off like any other, with me reluctantly getting out of bed after only a few hours’ of sleep and going to work. Hoping to vote before work so as to volunteer with the one of the candidate’s campaigns, I instead enjoyed a post-work Belgian waffle with coworkers and raced home to vote. Patrolling the streets were white vans with print-outs of how many people had voted by 4pm based on total number of eligible voters and whether they were “Haredi” (ultra-Orthodox) or secular.” The driver emphatically pleaded to the pedestrians via loudspeakers to vote, lest the Haredi candidate win.
I picked up my Interior Ministry voting information postcard, which had a print-out of my polling station’s address. My polling place is a religious public elementary school around the corner from me. The narrow road was packed with voters’ cars and booths of the various parties running for city hall. The security guard at the gate was checking bags and directing traffic to two different poll stations, mine and another school on the same campus. Once I entered the school, I was further relegated to a classroom that corresponded to a specific sub-category under which my vote is placed. One voter is allowed into a room at a time, with the setup featuring a table with four people and a sky blue science fair poster board display, behind which, is the voting booth.
After verifying my identity and checking me off in the roster, I was given two empty envelopes and instructions how to vote: the yellow ballots were for mayor, the white for city council. Only one yellow ballot was to be placed in the yellow envelope and only one white ballot in the white envelope. I went behind the science fair board, which had the official voting laws posted in small Hebrew print. Beneath it were multiple wooden cubbies with various white or yellow slips. The yellow slips had the names of the mayoral candidates in Hebrew, with only one listed in Arabic as well (the other official language of Israel). The white slips had the names of the parties in small type and one to three letters above it in large type for each party for city council. As Israel is a nation of immigrants, many of whom had to grasp Hebrew as a new language very quickly, measures were taken to ensure that anyone could understand how to vote. The large-type letters were understood to be easy enough for anyone eligible to vote to remember, and they’ve stuck for all this time.
I stuffed the correct envelopes left, dodging an array of electioneers and screaming voters trying to park on a one-way street. Initially planning to help volunteer on my candidate’s campaign, I was too tired to move and slumped into a chair, listening to the coverage on TV and radio. With the exit polls confirming my candidate would win, I joined friends at one of the many parties for people who voted. Eventually we ended up at my candidate’s official party in a hotel on the west side of town. The venue couldn’t have been better picked: on the other side of the road is the entrance to Mount Herzl, Israel’s national military cemetery, and on the other was the entrances to a Haredi neighborhood. In limbo between two worlds, the supporters inside waited all night for the first official results to come in from City Hall.

Not only did the Municipality post the actual results as they came in, but have a breakdown of votes by polling station. According to the results, my station saw 53% of its registered voters, 86% of whom voted for Nir Barkat. As for city council, the top four parties are a great demonstration of my neighborhood’s demographics: “Wake Up, Jerusalemites!” won the most (composed for secular and religious 20- & 30-somethings), followed by Meretz (non-socialist left wing party), “Jerusalem Will Succeed” (Barkat’s list), and a combined Mafdal/National Unity list (right-wing and Modern Orthodox).

Pictures from the day: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2400595&l=19d9a&id=818841

Here's to two of my candidates winning in the Trifecta of Democracy: The American Presidency and Jerusalem's Mayor.
Next race: 10 February 2009, Israel's National Elections.