guide to the jewplexed
 
Before a national election, we become obsessed with the Jewish vote. For President we not only want to know if our candidate is a percentage point up or down with our co-religionists, but how in their kishkas each candidate feels about Israel.

With just a touch of electoral narcissism, we also love to hear about the size of our vote.

As I peruse my California "Official Voter Information Guide," I am wondering that instead of focusing on our group voting patterns and ballot box endowments, we should focus on how our presence in the electorate can enable others to have that same passion for voting.

For generations, we have proudly made the most of our vote, and in the months to come the final tally of our influence will be worked out to the tenth decimal place, and spun in every conceivable way. But in that final count, what we won't know is how many of us are willing to help other Americans to make the most of their vote as well.

When other citizens are purged from the voter rolls, given difficult to meet ID requirements, or jewish voteare harassed about their identities at the polling place, how does the Jewish vote and more personally, the Jewish voter feel?

Contrasting the charged, restrictive air that hangs over this year's election, I can remember the first time I voted at age 18. The voter pamphlet came in the mail to my home in suburban Anaheim, California. A primary election was coming up, and I excitedly looked through the information, weighing the arguments.

On Election Day, I walked around the corner of my conservative residential neighborhood, looking for the polling place. I saw the flag first, and walked up the driveway. To my surprise, the polling place was not in a fire station, school, church or synagogue, but in a neighbor's garage. I was greeted, welcomed, and it felt good. Amidst the pegboard wall panels of screwdrivers, and wrenches, I marked my ballot. Wow-- this is how America worked.

Since then I have voted in community centers, people's homes, and a convalescent hospital. One year I even stood on the other side of the registration table as a precinct election official.

The balloting took place in a large hall of a community center set up with polling places for several separate precincts. The voters come in, saw the array and immediately became confused. Which one was theirs?

Working at the polling place, I saw how easy it was for voters to get mixed up, with many of the elderly needing to be redirected, even walked over to the right area.

That day, as proof of address, I saw gas bills, water bills; whatever some could scrape together to prove where they lived. They wanted to vote, and almost everyone did, even some provisionally. Yet, I can remember too, directing a person away because their correct polling place was in a different location. It didn't feel good.

I came away from that experience with a clearer understand of why disfranchisement, whether by law, or by intimidation was a Federal crime, and why in the Torah, putting a stumbling block before the blind, that is, misleading someone, was a sin.

Looking back on that day now, I see that protecting a citizen's right to exercise their vote should be what the so-called Jewish vote is all about. As a group, many of whom are the descendants of grandparents or great-grandparents who came to America seeking freedom, shouldn't we be the ones who are protecting, even expanding the vote, and not restricting, or "truing" it?

State legislatures can pass laws asking for voter ID, or limit voter access by decreasing the number of early voting days, and the Jewish vote, well-educated, and with enough resources to easily adapt, will probably not be affected. But come Election Day, in opposition to these efforts, my Jewish vote will be affected. What about yours?


Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie Madoff Halloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate. In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."