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One Man's Vote: Right Makes Rite

Scribe ruminates on participating in the democratic process, New York style

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 4, 2008 3:48 PM CST

(Newser) – Roger Angell has an almost religious view of the act of voting, and he shares it in the New Yorker. His experience might seem odd to voters outside New York, where touch screens are more prevalent, but the curtain, of “material and stiffness unknown elsewhere,” gives Angell a jolt. “Nothing is new inside," he writes, “but all is urgent.”

Angell reflects as he leaves the polling place. “A cloud of smugness enfolds me as I hit the street, exactly the kind of feeling that’s pretty well kept me out of churches. But why resist? I believe in this. It’s been said but I’ll say it: for a nanosecond I am important; infinitesimally I have done good. Feels great.”

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (1)]

The inside of a voting booth is seen at Public School 44 in New York. (AP Photo)

Voting booths at a warehouse in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo)

A voter steps into a voting booth to cast his ballot in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. (AP Photo)

Sean "Diddy" Combs emerges from a voting booth after casting his ballot at a polling station in New York. (AP Photo)

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Nothing is new inside but all is urgent. Here are the waiting, silent pilgrims, their faces blank as they turn to look at me. Here are the seated, reliable acolytes, the keepers of the book. - Roger Angell

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One Man's Vote: Right Makes Rite