Voting Is More Than Just Black And White

I am volunteering in a voting booth. A woman is holding up the line by checking her phone when it is her time to step into a cubicle to vote.

Me: “Can you please move along, ma’am?”

Voter: “Not yet! I need to check what they look like!”

Me: “Okay? Well, maybe you could step aside so that—”

Voter: “No! It’s my right to vote, and it’s my right to know what the person I am voting for looks like! My Google is just slow!”

Me: “Oh, well, we have a pamphlet provided by each candidate at this table here if you need to reacquaint yourself with their policies.”

Voter: “I don’t give a flying f*** about their policies! I just want to make sure whoever I vote for is white! You can’t just trust white-sounding names anymore.”

I stopped talking to her before I said something I couldn’t take back, and I just subtly redirected the line around her while she used Google for racism.