Sparta to Harrisonburg, the principle's the same

Does voting really matter? (Longer version)

A lot of people think it doesn’t. There isn’t that much difference between the candidates, they’ll argue, and partisan districting means a Democrat may not win the 26th Delegate seat or the 6th Congressional District in our lifetimes.

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But it you’re getting this letter, it’s because you’re on the list of people who vote. You know it matters, and here’s why I think it does.

1985: Late precincts and worst election karma

The worst election I ever dealt with was probably the one where everybody got sick. Or maybe it was the one where Sid thought he’d won. There are so many different layers and types of worst that it’s hard to cut it fine enough. And there are too many ways to define awful.

But here’s one way. Stuff kept being stolen from my apartment in Petersburg. I hadn’t known my girlfriend that long and was starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have given her a key. But it turned out that someone had a key to the vacant apartment next door, and was climbing into that attic and through the connecting space. I finally found out what was happening after I nailed the windows shut. The thief couldn’t get out the windows, so he had to scramble back out of the tiny attic opening in the bathroom. He turned over a set of shelves on the way out, and left footprints on the wall, evidence he’d never left before when he was dropping in and walking out onto the top of a connecting porch.