Election Day Photos
My friend Nadjib took some photos of the elections last Sunday. Some of the photos are of our street corner where hundreds of people came to watch Capriles vote. All the purple pinkies you see are of people who voted. Washington state is all by mail now, so we get no recognition of having voted, no way to show it off to friends and neighbors. When I lived in California I felt lucky when a little old lady pollworker gave me a small “I Voted ♥” sticker. I admit my envy; I think a purple pinkie finger is pretty cool, and versatile. You and a friend could come up with a neat purple pinkie-centric secret handshake. That would be cool. Or you could use it like you would a middle finger: Yeaah, take that, Apathy, what now?…Fino for sure.
As it turns out, the vast majority of Venezuelans are not apathetic. The polls saw 79.8% voter turn out, which is incredible relative to 57.5% in the US 2012 presidential election. But high turn-out doesn’t mean much if there is voter fraud (yet to be proven by the opposition party coalition, which says they have a pretty strong case).
Needless to say, there has been a lot of political action this week. I’ll see if I can sum it up in a subsequent post. For now, enjoy the images of people exercising democracy.
Fino Cambur 
Great photos Michael!
Some of my students (who are 11 and 12 and definitely way too young to vote) came to school the following week with their pinkies colored in with purple sharpie.