Bob and I exercised our civic duty last night and walked up to St. Richards School with Kuma to vote. One would think that after years and years and years of elections, the people who run the polling sites would have the system down to a science. Get everyone in and out in the quickest time possible. Alas, that was not the case with us. Here is the breakdown:
Walk from home to polling site: 7 minutes
Receive voting ticket: 3 minutes (there was one person in front of me)
Stand in line to sign in: 10 minutes (there were only two people ahead of me)
Stand in line to vote with paper voting: 5 minutes (there was one person in front of me)
Vote: 30 seconds
Place ballot in ballot box: 10 seconds
Stand outside with the dog while Bob voted and watched voters insult the volunteers outside: 25 minutes
Walk from polling site to home: 7 minutes
Now there was a newfangled device that was offered as an alternative for voters: the electronic touch screen. After signing in, you could choose to vote electronically or with a paper ballot. Let’s see: electronic voting (20 people in line while the five screens were occupied) or paper voting (zero people in line and five booths occupied). Hmm, that’s a hard decision, I have to think about it. As much as I enjoy new technology, I was thinking on how to get out of there the quickest. Now that I have voted, I have every right to complain about all the stupid people who run our country and all their stupid decisions. That’s really the only reason why I vote.
Okay, you know that big electronic box that you feed your paper ballot into? The one that scans in your answers immediately?
Wouldn’t it be funny if it made a loud grinding noise while it took in your document? Something paper-shredder-esque.
Those were my thoughts as I waited in the (equally as long at my polling place) electronic voting line.
They almost didn’t let me vote due to the fact that THEY made a clerical error and used my middle name as my second last name! So I had to stand in extra lines because they are retards. So once the guy couldn’t find my name he sent me to the “head election official” and she examined me, my license, and my voter registration card for what seemed like an eternity. Only for me to return to the line I started in. Then I was told I had to go to the other line because I was listed under my incorrect last name and not the “M”s. In the mean time all of the lines filled up and I had to wait while people pondered for 8-10 minutes over issues they should have been prepared to vote on.
One good thing is while I was voting Kenny was taking the dogs for a walk and as I was leaving the Center for Spiritual Living (why is that a poll place?) I was approached by a man with 2 dogs. It was Kenny :) If I hadn’t been delayed by the retards I would have missed him. What perfect timing!! So I guess it was good for something.