iVote — Do you?

At sixteen, you get to drive a car. At twenty-one, you get to drink. At eighteen, you get to vote. This is the way things work. And living in “the greatest country on earth,” we especially love the last one. It’s the favorite child, the one we brag about at family parties. We love it like we love beer and fireworks on the fourth of July.

My mom keeps telling me that this is my ‘age of firsts’ and that nothing will be as fresh and new — as first — as it is right now. She’s always telling me stories about what she did with her first paycheck, the model of her first car, or the first boy she kissed. But, today is first Tuesday in November and due to that simple fact, she’s telling me about how she drove with grandpa to the local gymnasium and walked on a carpet laid over turf grass to a stand alone automated voting booth to cast her vote. She tells me how scared and nervous she was, trying to make sure that she got everything she wanted down correctly. Then, she sighs and says that things will be a little different for me. She doesn’t say it like it makes her happy or sad. The sound of her voice says: that’s just the way it is.

The app sits patiently in my phone waiting to be opened. It’s actually kind of sweet how cute and minimalist they make the whole thing seem. You download it ahead of time so you can be registered. It asks for your social security number, so it has to be real deal, right? It sends you push notifications as the days get closer, asking you whether you’ve reviewed the candidates, updating you on the poll numbers which the app itself has taken, and giving you inspiring, almost propagandistic, quotes about how much you should love America. Then, voting day comes and that day is today.

I open the app. Fireworks float across my screen and the logo for iVote emerges. It brings me to a home interface, asking me if I’m “ready to vote?!” I press ‘Yes’ because it seems like the obvious option. The word ‘President’ floats down in big letters and then disappears. I feel like the next step should be a game where I defend the world from pixelated aliens but, instead, I am left with a list of candidates. I browse through each name. As I press each one, a profile appears with a condensed summary of each candidate’s campaign platform, with even a section at the top called ‘At a Glance’ which is limited to three word descriptions. I feel like I’m looking for a quick date more than the next leader of the free world.

I settle on the one that I dislike the least and the process repeats again from there, candidate after candidate, profile after profile. Eventually I arrive at the screen that congratulates me on voting in this election with an emphasis on how important it is to exercise this civil right. Below it is the image of an “I voted!” sticker that I can share to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, and Pinterest if I so desire. I decline to share it.

I decline because it feels false to claim that I voted. Was that really voting? What was the difference between that and taking a Facebook poll or swiping right on Tinder? It feels wrong — dishonest.

I begin to get angry at it. Who created this app anyhow? Who regulates it? They tell me that there’s a bureaucratic committee that heads it up, but who paid who to have their profile at the top of that list? Who is counting my vote? Who picked the person that will count my vote? Is my vote being counted at all? Or am I just being told that it is?

What happens when the app malfunctions and my vote is lost? When my voice is lost? What then? And what about those who can’t use the app, Those who are not privileged enough to access technology? Every advertisement for iVote tells me that it was created so that more people would have access to voting and to increase voter turnout. But, what kind of voter turnout is it when this increased access to voting is limited to a certain, wealthy, and lucky group of society?

I can’t look at my phone anymore so I look at my mom. She is sitting on the opposite couch from me, just now finishing her own digital ballot. She sighs again. Together, we have just voted for this term’s presidential election and have not even moved from our living room. It’s convenient but it feels wrong.

She notices my gaze and smiles at me. “Proud of you, sweetheart,” she says, but I don’t know what for. She reaches for the remote, and absentmindedly clicks on the TV.