Election Day
I always turn thoughtful and philosophical on election day. Today, here in Maryland, is a very pretty election day this time, too. The weather is just perfect for this time of year.
I voted earlier. Late morning is my usual time to vote, well after the morning yuppie rush-hour. I always seem to show up about the time that the rush–such as it is–of retired voters start showing up. It seems to make me feel extra patriotic to be voting along with all these people who get out their canes and walkers and have to expend much more time and energy to get to the voting booth than I do. Are they more inclined to see it as something important to do than younger people?
So now we're waiting for results. I rather like this time in between casting my vote and seeing how things come out. At the moment I'm feeling reasonably optimistic that the American People might wake up in time to elect a less corupt Administration, although I wouldn't bet on it right now. It's a bit of a shame though, that if they do the new people will have to waste most of their effort cleaning up all the Bush messes.
At my polling place (I've always had to vote in churches, which I admit makes me feel a little uncomfortable), we had the new touch-screen, computerized voting systems. It seemed to work fine, but why wouldn't it appear to? A week ago we heard a report on the radio that, in a side-by-side test with traditional voting machines, the computerized system had gotten the same answer! It's far from a surprise that it should, of course. Amidst all the reasonable concern about how easily the computerized systems can be manipulated, this bit of headline reassurance was the result of entirely the wrong experiment, the outcome of a badly designed question. There was no doubt that the computer systems could get the correct count, the questions were all about how easily they could be corrupted to produce a desired answer. Alas, this question was never tested.
Speaking of counting votes and thinking back to the vote count in Florida four years ago, I have another issue about the statistics of counting that I need to write about, namely, the futility of recounts when the voting is that close. Basically, in that case, the result (who won by how few hundreds of votes) was random, and would have been different each time the ballots were counted, corruption aside. It's in the nature of counting things.
Speaking of corruption and voting, I haven't heard any headlines yet today about overt scandals at any polling places, but it was in my mind. While I was waiting to have my name checked against the roll, a man in the line next to me was surprised to discover that his name was not on the list. He was black. What was he thinking right then? One of the judges came right over to help him straighten things out.
Speaking of the polling judges, some of them looked familiar from previous years, but all of them seemed engaged and delighted to be doing something important and helpful. It's creates a nicer atmosphere, and also inspires a bit more confidence in their honesty. As each of us voters left, they gave us a little sticker and said "Thanks for voting", as though they appreciated it personally.
Speaking of the little "I voted" sticker now on my shirt, it also says "Yo Voté". It made me think of times still in my memory when the great issue dividing the electorate was creeping bilingualism, particularly in the SouthWest, a cultural scourge that, if allowed to get a foothold, would surely mark the end of our civilization as we knew it. So thought the same type of reactionaries who are now convinced that letting two men marry each other would be the death knell of society as surely as an "exit" sign in English and Spanish. I suppose reactionaries serve some purpose, but it's not obvious to me what the purpose might be. At any rate, I decided that the "Yo Voté" sticker was a sign that celebrating the marriage of two men or two women would–in my lifetime–seem as natural and American as, well, as voting.
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on Thursday, 4 November 2004 at 09.32
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You always have such intertesting things to say. The stickers in Kansas City, KS were big and round as compared to the tiny ovals of years past. On them in big red letters in the center said I Voted; the V being blue with stars. On the top and bottom of that it said I Made Freedom Count. Well, apparently I didn't because my state voted for the person I didn't/
Some of the people that work at the polls do seem to appreciate the voters personally. I worked the majority of the time as a provisional judge and when I was done with someone, I would say thank you. But I think that was more out of courtesy than anything else. I did enjoy helping the people, but then again I always have. The supervising judge really liked me being there and he said he hopes I come back. I guess he liked my style of talking with the voters. Although I am not in to politics and I don't really think my vote makes much of a difference, I sure enjoyed the experience of working at the polling place. Especially when I had to write down all of the write-in votes: George Washington, Goofy, Scrooge, Ebenezer, Abraham Lincoln, Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Tazmania Devil and so on. Nobody did any write-ins for the president, these were all for local races. We had several that ran unapposed and they happened to be Democrates, so someone did write-ins of Republican. For those that are reading this and wondering, "I thought my ballots were secret." Well you are write about that, we don't know who it was that wrote these. But the machines we have only read the blackened ovals, so we have to find all the write-in ballots and write the names on a sheet of paper.