"What are the old people doing?" Pippa asked. Emil looked through the door of the kitchen.
"I think they're filling out their ballots," he said.
"What are ballots?" Pippa wanted to know.
"That's how people vote," Emil replied.
"Why don't they just raise their hands the way we do?" the smaller doll asked, because she had been here long enough to know how that works.
Emil wasn't sure. "Maybe it's because everyone would have to be in the same room," he said. "Maybe they use ballots to vote when there are too many people to fit into one room." Then he thought for a moment. "I've been wondering about it, too," he said finally. "Just like you, Pippa, this is my first election. Let's go ask one of the older dolls."
Emil thought about the older dolls. Which one would be best to ask? Who would know? Who would have the best answers? Who was easy to find?
Any one of them would probably be able to answer their questions, but Mariah was right there in the dining room, writing, so Emil thought he would try her first. Emil and Pippa climbed up on the dining room chairs. Mariah put her pencil down and looked up from her work.
"Mariah," Emil began, "I can see you are busy, but I was wondering if you could answer a question for us. It's about voting."
"I would love to talk with you about voting!" Mariah said enthusiastically. "I was just reading about elections in this book. I was just reading how important it is for all voters to do their duty."
Emil climbed over to Mariah's chair, and perched on the arm of it. Pippa climbed up and sat on the table. They both wanted to be where they could see Mariah and pay attention to what she said. When they were settled comfortably, Mariah said, "Now tell me what you wanted to know."
"Well," Pippa began, "The old people we live with were filling out their ballots in the kitchen. I was just asking Emil why they had to do it all on paper, instead of just raising their hands."
Emil added, "And I said I thought raising hands would only work if they were all in the same room."
"That's true," agreed Mariah. "Right now there are millions of real human people all over this country who are filling out their ballots at home, and many more will go to special places called polls or polling places."
"Why do they vote?" asked Pippa.
Emil nodded. "Yes," he said. "I was wondering about that, too. What are they voting about? I know we sometimes vote about whether Jolena should make oatmeal-raisin cookies or chocolate chip."
"Yes," Pippa agreed. "Whichever type of cookie gets the most votes is what she will make, but why would the old people need to vote about that? They can just make what they want, and it doesn't matter what the people who don't live with us want."
"That's true," Mariah agreed, "but when lots of people who all live in the same city or state or country all have to decide something that affects them all, having them raise their hands wouldn't work. You would have to get them all in the same room, and there isn't a room large enough. It would be very difficult to count all the raised hands, too."
The two younger dolls nodded. It made sense for each person to put their vote on a piece of paper. They understood that, but they both felt that there was more to know.
"What kinds of things do they vote on," Emil asked then.
"I'll show you," Mariah said. "They left the Voters' Pamphlet in the living room." She motioned for the other two dolls to follow her.
In the living room, Mariah picked up a big book, and the three dolls got comfortable on the couch. "Our state doesn't have polling locations," Mariah explained. "All voters get their ballots in the mail, so people who live here fill out their ballots at home and either put them into the mail or they take them to a place with a special ballot box that is just for that purpose. This book tells voters where they can take their ballots. It tells them everything they need to know to be able to vote."
Then Mariah found the place in the book where it explained what people were voting on. "Here is where we can read about the ballot measures," she explained. Those are about changes to laws or how to spend money."
Mariah turned a few pages. "Here are the candidates," she said.
Pippa stood up so she could see better. It's hard to see sometimes when you're smaller than everyone else.
"Candied dates?" Pippa asked.
"That sounds good to eat," Emil said.
Mariah had to laugh.
"No, nothing to pretend to eat," she said when she could stop laughing. "Candidates. Those are people who want to work in a job that is elected. Many of the people who work for us are elected. That means the person who gets the job is chosen by the people, the voters."
"Like the librarian?" Emil asked. He liked to visit the library and thought the librarian was nice.
"No," Mariah answered. "We don't elect our librarian. That person is chosen by other people in the government and has to be someone with special training. We do get to elect our sheriff, though, and there is a ballot measure to expand and improve the library. That means to spend money make it bigger and better." Mariah opened the booklet to the page where it told about the library.
"I hope they vote for that," Pippa said. "It's already a very big place, but if it's bigger, they will be able to have more books."
"Who else gets elected, then?" Emil asked.
"The people on our city council," Mariah explained, "then county offices. A county is made up of lots of towns and cities in the same part of the state. Then there are people in the state government, like the governor. The governor is in charge of everything in the state."
Pippa nodded. She thought she was beginning to see the picture. "So there are things that we need people for right here in our neighborhood, and then further away, there are things people all over need."
Mariah agreed, although that sounded a little vague. "Then there's the national government," she went on. "We elect someone who lives in our area to go and represent us in the national government. We have two Senators from our state, and one of them is on the ballot this time, and we have Representatives, and then there's the President. That's the person who will have to work to see that everyone else is doing his or her job properly."
"It sounds very complicated," Emil said.
"It gets easier to understand," Mariah suggested, "when you read about it and hear about it on TV. I really want to know all about these things, because I think I may want to be a community organizer someday. That's a person who helps dolls get what they need in their neighborhoods. They come up with ideas and find people to run for office, to become candidates. Then they work to get people out to vote."
Then Mariah had a sudden idea. "There's one other thing I forgot to tell you," she said. "There's another reason the human people have to use a ballot instead of raising their hands. It's because no one can see how they voted. That means they don't have to worry about upsetting their friends and neighbors if they want to vote differently from them, and no one can force them to vote for someone they don't want to."
"What if they want to tell them?" Emil asked.
"Of course," Mariah answered, "they can tell everyone if they want. People even put up signs in their yards and stickers on their cars to let people know how they are voting, but if they want to keep it secret, no one knows."
"It must be complicated to be a human," Emil said.
"It's certainly more complicated than being a doll," Mariah agreed, "but they start out as children, and they have lots of time to learn everything as they grow up. They can't vote until they are grown up."
The dolls heard the sound of chairs scraping on the floor. "They must be done with the ballots," Mariah said. "They will drive in the car to the drop box and put them in. Then when election day comes, they will watch the news to see how the election comes out."
Then they heard the garage door open and the car doors close in the garage. Then the garage door closed.
"We have the house to ourselves," Emil said. "They will be gone for a while. What would you like to do?"
The dolls thought about that. Then Mariah suddenly had an idea. "Pippa is small enough to ride on the robot vacuum cleaner!"
"Yes," said Emil. "Pippa, you hardly weigh anything, and it will be fun!"
Pippa is always ready for anything, so that's what they did. They didn't even have to vote about it!
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.
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Copyright © 2020, 2023 by Peggy Stuart
I love your stories :)
ReplyDeletewow Peggy, I always wondered about''Ballot'' but you made it crystal clear for a non American, thank you :) .....like the knittings!
ReplyDeleteNice!
ReplyDelete