LightHusband and I arose at an ungodly hour this morning.  We were on a mission.

Today is the last day to register to vote in Virginia if you want to vote in this year’s federal, state and local election cycle in November.  A friend of ours has been very active in getting people to vote.  She suggested (you may take that word in any manner you like) that we go to a local commuter train station in the early morning hours and “help” people register to vote.  She was very persuasive and somewhat zealous about it.  She also threw in a yard sign for the candidate of our choice as bait.

So we got up very, very early this morning.  LightHusband dressed in conservative gear, I dressed more liberally and we went to the train station fully loaded with clipboards full of registration forms, absentee voter cards, and pens.  We had no candidate information whatsoever.  We were not interested in prosyletizing for any particular candidate, just getting people registered to vote.

However, we made a critical error.  The people who wait for commuter trains are the responsible citizens.  They are the folks who have already registered and know all about absentee voter rules.  So we came home, mildly disappointed with our outing.

We’re trying to think of other third spaces where people gather and congregate and might be amenable to thinking about the idea of registering to vote.   Or maybe just being amenable to talking to other people at all.