Bringing a toddler to the polls is not for the faint of heart. I do it anyway because I want them to see democracy and voting in action — even if they spend part of our trip trying unsuccessfully to use the ballot-marking device or playing with the pens in the voting booth.

Every time I’ve brought my kids to vote, a poll worker has fondly told me how their parents brought them to the polls as a kid. I hope my own kids will remember the experience with fondness, too.

Their civic education isn’t only at the polls. I try to foster voting excitement at home, so this year I made pretend ballots for each of my kids using VOTE411.org to look up our local candidates and ballot measures. I wrote out the ballot for them on a piece of paper with ovals for them to fill in their selections. They were proud to get checked in on the poll pad (i.e. the iPad I pretended to type on). They brought their check-in slip to their make-believe election judge dad, who got into character by naming himself Election Judge Michelob Zenturion.

My 3-year-old carefully filled in the ovals just as I instructed, and his older sister asked questions about every candidate to ensure she was making an apt decision. My competitive middle child wanted to know if his candidates won.

Get Your Election Info!

They scanned their marked ballots into a paper bag, and I announced the pretend winners to cheers and groans from the voters. Afterward, they wanted to vote again in our homemade election, but I assured them they could only vote once.

I love getting my kids excited about voting and try to engage them in politics year-round. They know the name of our mayor and say hi to him when I host an annual Family Friendly Tour of City Hall. They sat on my lap as I served on my local library board, and they’ve attended city commission meetings with me.

Even with all this local activity, I hope voting will be their base and lead to more involvement, maybe even future candidacy. My oldest asked me if she’d make a good candidate for public office, and I told her she’d be very good. She’s a great listener and problem solver.

My kids are also well-versed in VOTE411, the League of Women Voters’ nonpartisan one-stop shop for voting and election information. My middle child asked me recently, “Is the website you work on famous?” I told him I’m proud that millions of people use VOTE411 every year and hopefully other parents and caregivers will use it to teach their kids about voting. 

I’m equipping my kids for civic engagement as they become adults and leaders in our community, and they will be joining me at the polls again this year. I hope to see even more kids with their adult voters when we go!

Editor's Note: No children, however adorable, voted in the making of this blog. We are also unaware of any election officials named Michelob Zenturion, but that may be our own ignorance.