This has already been a historic election season. While we don't have a complete count just yet, we know that the number of people who turned out to vote this year is massive. Between large numbers of mail-in ballots, early votes, and Election Day votes cast, records were smashed. One Florida woman who was in labor wasn't about to miss out on making sure her vote was cast last week. She actually stopped to vote on her way to the hospital.
According to the woman's husband, she refused to be taken to the hospital without one final stop. And according to witnesses who were working at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office last week, her husband came in to request a vote-by-mail ballot for his wife. She was in the car just outside … in labor.
The story just goes to show how important this election truly is. For those who were determined to vote, almost nothing could get in their way.
This election season has been like nothing we've ever seen before. People have come out in droves, or voted by mail, in record-breaking numbers. Needless to say, Americans definitely felt like voting was uniquely important during this unprecedented election year.
One laboring woman proved that just last week when she forced her husband to stop and get her a mail-in ballot before he took her to the hospital. Sure, it's a bit intense. But like a lot of Americans, she was determined to make sure her vote was counted. That's pretty much the kind of energy this election has seen.
"I have not seen anything like this before, but our job is to make sure that every eligible voter votes," Karen Briceño González, who works in the voter service department, told CNN. "No matter the circumstances, we're going to ensure that they vote even if it's someone in labor in a car." No — it won't count as two votes, but it's still pretty important.
Briceño González was working at the counter when the man came in to ask for help. She explained, "I was helping at the counter with the voters for early voting and I got a gentleman handing me 2 driver's licenses. I was telling him, 'No, I just need yours. If the other person wants to come in and vote, they can.' And he said, 'No, you don't understand. My wife's going to have a baby.'"
Since the woman couldn't come in, Briceño González rushed outside to give the ballot directly to her and check her ID. The woman didn't want to wait and began filling out her ballot right then and there. At the same time, she was working on her breathing technique because, well, a baby was about to come out of her.
After that, the mom-to-be was off to the hospital to have her baby. Hopefully, she could breathe a little easier knowing that she did her civic duty. No word on who she voted for, but the point is, this election was super important to her, and she deserves a whole lot of respect for not letting anything stand in her way!
Chances are, she's pretty glad that she did vote, too. Florida was a huge battleground state. President Donald Trump is the projected winner in Florida, but regardless of how this woman voted, we're guessing she's glad she did not sit this one out (or labor it out because … that's what she would've been doing).
Another elections clerk working in the office, Eileen Deliz, told The Guardian that the couple did not mention why the woman had waited until she was in labor to cast her vote. But the truth is, we don't always know exactly when we're going to go into labor! Birth can be totally unpredictable. "Maybe she wanted to come in person at one point and that's why she was waiting, who knows," she said. "But she wouldn't go to the hospital until she voted."
We still don't know the outcome of the election. We could be days or even weeks away from having all of the votes counted. But that's one of the great things about being an American — we have laws in place to protect our right to have our votes counted.
All we have to do is make sure we get to the polls. This year, Americans young and old did just that. No matter the result of the election, we did our civic duty this year — even those of us who had darn good excuses not to vote, like being in labor, managed to have their voices heard.
That's democracy for ya.
