Today I casted my first ballot ever, in my first eligible election, on a closely watched Super Tuesday.

5 and half years ago, on Nov 6th, 2018, I was attending QCon in San Francisco. On one of the keynote session, the speaker (I don’t remember who, either Wes or Randy) started with this: “If you haven’t voted yet don’t waste time here GO VOTE!” The whole audience cheered, but at that time I was not eligible to vote.

In theory, I could had casted my ballot back in China. The reality is, although I saw some local level elections happening, and multiple candidates competing for a position, I never saw a ballet myself. Neither in the city I attended school, nor in the city I worked, also not in the city my hukou was. It’s been a long wait for me to have the same rights to vote as those who were born here.

To cast this ballot, I did my independent study to decide what I vote for, filled it, sealed it, signed it, all before today. This morning after other duties, I went to my city’s voting center at 8:25am, and within a few minutes I was done: it was so unceremonious, rather, it was like dropping off a letter at the post office, only with more steps to take, a few more photos and selfies myself decided to take, a few more sentences exchanged with voting center workers, a special sticker to claim and further decorate my laptop, and “you are all set” when the ballot was in the box.

The voting center is spacious, and by glancing there are nearly 10 workers. From my start to end, I only saw 3 other voters, all seem to be Chinese: it may be pessimistic to say turnout is low by my data points, and lots of people do mail in their ballots. But as a first time voter, I want to remind those who can vote, GO VOTE in every election, not everyone has the privilege to do so.