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I don’t remember the first time I ever entered a voting booth, probably because I was about 7 months old.
At least that’s what my mom says, and I trust her memory of the 1996 presidential election more than my own. I’m sure it was a momentous occasion, helping her choose between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. I’m sure I helped a lot, in the way you can only do when you haven’t had a birthday yet.
I was also there four years later when she chose between George W. Bush and Al Gore, and again when she chose between Bush and John Kerry. I was there for the in-between elections too, for city council and state representative and more.
There were two reasons for this, she later told me. The first was that our polling place was in the gymnasium at my school, Wilkerson Elementary in Warren, Michigan, which was typically closed on Election Day. There wasn’t anyone else to look after me when she had to go vote. So with her I went.
The second was that from my very earliest days, she wanted me to know that voting was an important thing you did. You did it because you had to, because it took almost no time, and it made a difference not only for you but for those around you, too.
In my family, voting was treated as something you’re expected to do to make your community better — the bare minimum to help shape the kind of society we want to live in. I didn’t realize how unusual that mentality was until I went to college and cast a vote myself for the first time. Others didn’t vote at all; I was so excited, I voted early.
I grew up in Michigan but moved a lot as a kid. I went to college in Ohio (no, not that college in Ohio). I finally had the opportunity to come back home in 2021 to work for The Detroit News. There, I was a data reporter and wrote the kind of stories I thought would matter to the people I knew when I was that little girl in Warren accompanying my mom to the polling place.
Joining Votebeat last summer gave me a chance to do even more of the work that matters locally, more centered on one of our most important rights as Americans. I’d previously covered basically every level of government in some way, from school board meetings to NASA launching rockets into space. But Votebeat spoke to me in a different way, because the way we do things here is fundamentally different from anywhere I’ve ever worked before.
One thing that drew me to Votebeat was its mission of producing stories that generate tangible impacts aimed at stronger and fairer elections. Where can we improve those systems? What barriers keep voters from casting a ballot? What flaws or failures could keep a ballot from being counted? What requirements do the people who run our elections follow, and what challenges are they up against?
In the coming months and years, those are the kinds of stories I expect to be reporting. I’ll follow up with the legislature, yes, but I will also be talking to local clerks and a whole lot of voters. I promise you that I’ll continue to write stories that provide the context you need to get the whole picture. And if you have a question or a problem when you go to cast your ballot, I’ll do everything I can to figure out what is going on.
I started at Votebeat in July, just a few weeks before the August primary and a few months before the November general election. It was a blustery and fast-moving time, which is probably why it’s taken me so long to reflect in print about why I’m here. I think it will probably go down as one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done for work, which is saying something, because once I moved to Idaho for a job.
I think there’s a very specific kind of romance that comes from voting: not just the idea that democracy provides a mechanism for changing your world but also that you can be part of that force for change.
I don’t take lightly that if I was born in a different generation or a different country, I wouldn’t be able to take part in that kind of romance. So yes, you’ll see me each and every election, casting my vote on local millages and county commissioners and who I’d like to be the next Michigan secretary of state.
I hope to see you there, too.
Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.
