The Procrastinator

Her absentee ballot request form was printed out, completed, signed and sealed, but Paige Stewart never quite put it in the mail.

The 27-year-old is studying for a masters degree in psychology in San Deigo but hasn’t found a permanent address there yet. She realized on Friday that she had let the deadline for turning in her absentee ballot back in Iowa lapse.

“I talk this talk but I’m not walking the walk,” Paige says. “It came from a place of forgetfulness.” She decided that she’d just have to fly home to vote on Tuesday.

Paige Stewart

She bought a last-minute ticket from San Diego to Des Moines, one with two connections. She’ll be leaving this evening at 8:30, stopping in Denver, then Minnesota, then finally arriving in Des Moines at 11 a.m. on Election Day. “I have some homework and some serious reading to do,” she says.

How much did the ticket cost? “I don’t want to think about it,” Paige says.

Paige isn’t as worried as some about the tight election here in Iowa. “Iowa is a little ahead,” she says. Her vote is “more a commitment to inner values.” But with the vote cast, she says she hopes “something beautiful will come out of this.”