A Woman In Labor Stopped To Vote Before Heading To The Hospital
The woman in labor made her husband grab her a mail-in ballot on the way to the hospital
On days like today, the swathe of news stories can make it difficult for any one particular story to stand out, but this one right here is going to be one that gets recorded in the annals of history, folks. A Florida woman who was actively in labor made her husband stop at the local elections office so she could snag a mail-in ballot before going to the hospital.
According to witnesses who were working at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office last week, the man came by to request “a vote-by-mail ballot for his wife, who was in labor in the car outside,” the office said in a statement to CNN.
The woman apparently refused to go to the hospital until she voted. And that right there sounds like the 2020 superhero origin story we all need, TBH.
“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.”
Briceño González was working when the man came up to the counter with the husband’s request. “I was helping at the counter with the voters for early voting and I got a gentleman handing me 2 driver’s licenses,” Briceño González said. “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.'”
She said she rushed outside to give the woman a postal ballot and check her ID. She assumed the laboring woman would just fill it out later and mail it in before the Election Day deadline, but no — NO — that wasn’t good enough. If you don’t know, now you know: do not get in the way of a determined mother about to expel a watermelon-sized human from her body. Apparently, the woman began working on her Lamaze breathing while filling out her ballot.
“She said: ‘No, no, no! I need to fill it out right now,’” Gonzalez told Fox 35. “So she filled it out. I gave her an ‘I Voted’ sticker and she was off to the hospital.”
Eileen Deliz, an elections clerk in the office, told The Guardian that the couple never mentioned why the woman had waited until she was in labor to cast her vote. “Maybe she wanted to come in person at one point and that’s why she was waiting, who knows. But she wouldn’t go to the hospital until she voted.”
Do we know who she voted for? No. But let’s just speculate for a moment here: do people who are perfectly happy with the currents state of affairs and status quo stop to cast a vote while actively contracting in labor? Probably not, no.
“We are very, very busy, but when something like that happens it just makes our day,” Deliz added. “Every election cycle brings us a great little story.”
Officials said the woman’s husband drove her to an Orlando hospital. They did not release the voter’s name. So for now, we’ll just call her The Determined, Dilated Voter. Cheers and best wishes to her family.
