Democratic Vote

Silence fell over the room of three thousand as they looked up to their Secretary of State. She toyed with their anticipation, deliberately slowing her words, “Your finalists for 68th Youth Governor are…” she glanced back at the paper before erupting into a full grin, “from the West Mountain delegation, James Hepburn, and from the North Hollywood delegation, Stephanie Rosten!”

James felt his toes and fingertips go numb as his face flushed. The people around him erupted in cheers and surrounded him with suffocating embraces as they ushered him towards the stage. In their minds he had won, emerged triumphant, become the literal embodiment of democracy. As he walked up the steps towards the podium, he glanced back at the sea of bittersweet expressions as the end of this year came to a close. He had worked for this as long as he could remember and the fear of losing tasted metallic in his mouth.

The taste of tin on his tongue reminded him of the imitation orange juice they all drank with breakfast at their training conferences. The conference where he first met Stephanie. She came up to his table as he was halfway through his questionable oatmeal and embraced him.

“I cannot wait for this race!” Her cheeks were rosy, despite the freezing weather. James was genuinely taken aback. Sure, he was less emotionally open than most and preferred to hide within the confines of his masculinity, but her openness was unique. He watched her the entire weekend, always talking to delegates she didn’t know, a constant expression of warmth and love and enthusiasm on her face. James knew it was a facade, and he knew the exhaustion would get to her before the conference was over. However, even by the end, when they announced who would be moving on to the next round of the governor’s election, he didn’t see her passion waver even once.

Now, he saw the same unbridled emotion on her face as she gave her final speech before the last leg of the election. He knew he would have to present himself as the calm and collected candidate to oppose her relentless cheeriness. Surely people would associate her with overwhelming emotions, hopefully even mood swings, while they associated him with confidence and competency.

Suddenly James felt an odd sense of fear grip his entire body. Had he made it this far only to fall into the same destructive patterns former runner-ups had? He didn’t want to start drinking like Amelia or end up in rehab like Max or fall into a state of utter despair that lasted for months like Alex and every other finalist. He needed to win. He was going to win.

James saw Stephanie’s face tighten as she swallowed the lump in her throat. He knew that she had never dreamed of making it this far. She would probably collapse on stage halfway through the voting. He knew that she would crash at some point; the constant high of happy emotions wouldn’t last forever.

The Secretary approached the podium and cooly called to the microphone stand placed among the banquet tables, “Verdugo Hills delegation, how do you cast your votes?”

Verdugo Hills was a medium-sized delegation of about 80 people. James’ party chair was friends with their president, so it came as no surprise to him when the representatives enthusiastically cried out, “The Verdugo Hills delegation proudly casts our votes as follows,” they broke their unison as one boy stated, “Seven for Stephanie Rosten.” The girl then approached the microphone and smiled at James, “And sixty-eight for James Hepburn!”

The cheers of the room were numb to James’ ears as he turned back and saw the screen behind him. The zeros beneath the thirty-foot Hepburn and Rosten had been changed to the appropriate number of votes. 68 to 7.

Soon the other delegations began to read their votes as the numbers wavered. One minute James was up and the next Stephanie. Culver-Palms delegation. 82 to 35. SDSC cluster. 97 to 53. SRV Valle Lobo. 105 to 94.

The wind was knocked out of his lungs for a minute. 110 to 105. Looking out onto the overwhelming mass of students, the thought crossed his mind that the majority of them may not like him. 130 to 133. That they liked Stephanie. 140 to 157.

Being behind was only temporary. They altered the way delegations read their votes to create an interesting election. A spectacle. 168 to 211. Soon, the large delegations came up.

“NCDM proudly casts our votes as follows: 53 for James Hepburn and 178 for Stephanie Rosten!”

Victory began to elude him. 243 to 451.

Why was it so public? 354 to 583. Why were the votes so blatantly shown to everyone? 602 to 903. What was happening? 613 to 972. Had he not worked hard enough, given up countless nights to visit delegations, spent hours agonizing over every last detail of his speeches, shaken hands until he grew calloused, walked up and down the dusty dirt roads of Camp Roberts and uneven pavement and potholes of K Street? 676 to 1003.

Looking out into the audience, he realized everyone could see his tears. The delegates in the front wore sympathetic frowns for only seconds before jubilant grins covered their faces. 774 to 1532. This was not his election. They were not here for him. They were here to elect a governor, and no matter who won, they were happy. 892 to 1781.

Stephanie’s face was relieved and exhausted. James saw her realize she had finally made it. She was the only one who made it. He could see her pass the endpoint they had all only dreamed of.

“Ladies and gentlemen, seeing as we have reached a majority, I am proud to present your 68th Youth Governor, the Honorable Stephanie Rosten!”

The deafening applause was numb to James’ ears. He felt sweaty and cold and just wanted to get off the stage. In a few hours he would be in his home and none of it would matter. He just had to wait until it didn’t matter. Until this entire world would only exist in Facebook photos and sappy remember-when texts and painful memories.


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Democratic Vote Analysis

Most of the way Democratic Vote connects with the themes in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is through the subtext and implied way in which James and Shukhov deal with loss. While there is a very large difference between losing an election for a fake version of a job Arnold Schwarzenegger used to have and spending ten years of your life in an incredibly harsh Russian work camp, the devastation and emotional burden placed on the characters is relative to the hardships they have faced in their lives. Shukhov has clearly had a much harder life than James, but it is still possible to compare the way they cope with loss.

Shukhov chooses to blame his losses on the fault of a divine power as he explains to the deeply religious Alyoshka his opinion on prayer, “[His eyes] had a light in them and they were like two candles. And he sighed. ‘I’ll tell you why, Alyoshka. Because all these prayers are like the complaints we send in to the higher-ups - either they don’t get there or they come back to you marked ‘Rejected.’ … Either there was nothing or it was ‘Rejected’” (139). Shukhov does not blame individual people on his problems, although he could easily blame Caesar for not picking up the slack the gang needed him to, or the Captain for being hotheaded around guards, or the sleeping prisoner for holding them back from dinner for so long. Instead, he chooses to blame some kind of intangible authority figure such as the authority at the camp which no one has had any real experience with. He decides that when he faces hardships, he is simply being rejected by some incorporeal force instead of an actual person or physical flaw he can point to. James, on the contrary, chooses to blame individuals or character faults or simple refuse to accept loss. For the longest time, up until the actual results of the election were announced, he still sees himself as governor. He also constantly compares himself to Stephanie, and if the story were to carry into the emotional aftermath of his loss, he would analyze what he could have done better not based on some divine path laid out for him, but how he could be more like Stephanie. He does not believe that his loss was some kind of predetermined part of his life plan, but rather a fluke in what would have otherwise been a perfect life. He even begins to cry and sweat, showing how he is physically unable to cope with loss. The sudden shock of having to accept it makes him physically unwell. He is unaccustomed to being able to accept it. While Shukhov accepts loss as just another part of life, James doesn’t often admit or accept when life does not go his way.