What’s bringing metro-east voters to the mid-term polls? Their reasons vary
McKenzi Mitchell planned to walk the dog, fix breakfast, work out and get some homework done on Tuesday.
The mid-term election wasn’t at the top of her priority list because she didn’t feel particularly knowledgeable about the candidates or issues. But her friend, Patrick Bateman, insisted.
“This one woke me up this morning and said, ‘You need to come and vote with me,’” said Mitchell, 24, a Southern Illinois University Edwardsville student. “He said, ‘It’s your right and your civic duty.’”
Mitchell ended up at the Mannie Jackson Center for the Humanities, a polling place in Edwardsville, before 8 a.m. It was the wrong one for her address, but at that point, she was committed to find the right one and cast a ballot.
Other metro-east residents were a little more purposeful on Tuesday.
“I haven’t missed a vote since 1968,” said Kevin Sweeney, 68, an aerospace engineer who voted at Parkview Church of the Nazarene in Fairview Heights. “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain, and I love to complain.”
The serious reason?
“I think the country is not going in a good direction right now,” Sweeney said. “I’m independent, but I’m going to vote primarily for Republicans this year because the best we can hope for is a divided government between Congress and the presidency so they don’t do anything stupid in the next two years.”
Dr. Terrilyne Cole, 50, also sees a troubling directional shift, but it’s the one prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that gave women a constitutional right to an abortion.
Cole showed up at the polling place in O’Fallon First United Methodist Church on Tuesday to support candidates, mostly Democrats, who are pro-choice.
“I’m a physician, and I’m really concerned about reproductive rights for women,” she said. “They should be able to make their own decisions about health care. I don’t think a politician should have a place in the exam room. It should be a decision between patients and their health-care providers.”
The main concern of Guy Cantonwine, 64, a U.S. Air Force retiree who voted at the same polling place, was a little broader.
“I think that this country is in peril, and that democracy is at stake, and I hope everybody who feels similar comes out to vote,” he said, adding that the alternative is an autocratic government.
Behind him in line was Rebecca Ferguson, 68, another U.S. Air Force retiree.
“Being a Christian, I believe it’s our duty to vote,” she said. “We are going back instead of forward. For four years, we were going the right way with President Donald Trump, and I felt really good about it. Now I don’t.
“Obama and Biden and all those clowns, they’re pushing for a new world order. But that’s not going to happen until the rapture comes. That’s my Biblical belief. This is God’s timetable. It’s God’s decision. People think things are bad now. They don’t know how bad it’s going to get.”
Ruby Akins, 76, a retired school clerk, supported President Barack Obama, and she voted Tuesday at Wright Elementary School in East St. Louis to show support for President Joe Biden.
Akins remembered the difficult challenges that Obama faced after the 2010 mid-term election allowed Republicans to take back the U.S. House of Representatives.
“But I always vote,” she said. “My parents said, ‘People died for Blacks to be able to vote,’ so I always make it my business to vote.”
Bus monitor Calvin Webb, 47, showed up at Collinsville Senior Citizens Center to vote but learned that it was the wrong polling place for his address, so he had to go elsewhere.
His top issue was the city’s vote on home rule.
“They’re trying to raise property taxes, and homeowners aren’t agreeable to it,” Webb said. “Other than that, it’s just a time to say what we like and what we don’t like and what we want and what we don’t want. (My employer) gave us all the day off to go vote.”
Some voters on Tuesday acknowledged that they had strong feelings but preferred to keep them private.
“(Voting is) my civic duty, my voice, my right,” said Stacey Staake, 41, a medical billing and coding employee who voted at New Rivers Assembly of God Church in Maryville.
“I’m concerned about our state as a whole and our well-being. I would say the most important thing on the ballot was the governor’s race and the senate.”
When asked what were his top issues, Glenn Taylor responded “all of them.” He’s a merchandiser who also voted at New Rivers.
“(Voting is) a right,” said Taylor, 53. “It’s necessary. It’s democratic. I vote in the general election, and I vote in the mid-terms. I’ve done it since I was 18 years old, since I was old enough to vote.
“I’m probably in the last generation to do that.”
In contrast, Jeannie Baudino, 71, a retired customer service manager who voted at Signal Hill School in Belleville, wasn’t shy about offering her opinions.
“I’m not happy with what we have now,” she said. “I’m not happy with the way the Democrats are doing things. This country is not the great America it once was. They’re trying to turn it into a communist country.
“I used to be a Democrat, but the stuff they’re planning on teaching kids in school (about gender choices), it’s totally ridiculous. And inflation and gas prices and the way we left Afghanistan? It was was wrong. We left our Americans there. And all those illegal immigrants coming through the border? We have elderly people who can’t even afford food and medicine. Why aren’t we helping them?”
Several voters expressed their preference for voting on Election Day instead of casting ballots early.
For Staake, it’s “tradition.” Sweeney thinks it’s a safer method.
“I have real qualms about absentee voting,” he said. “The potential for fraud is just too great. If people need absentee ballots, that’s one thing. You don’t want to disenfranchise anyone. But to do it just to make voting easier ... When did democracy become easy?”
Sandy Haggerty, 57, who owns a roofing business, also likes voting on Election Day. It makes her feel good.
Haggerty was smiling while waiting in line and chatting Tuesday at Collinsville Senior Citizens Center, mainly because she doesn’t have to watch any more TV campaign commercials.
“I’ll be glad when it’s over,” she said.
This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 2:37 PM.
