the chutry experiment

You already read mine, but I'll post it again since people seem afraid to be the first commenter. Mine was blissfully anti-climatic. I voted early last Tuesday. There were about 100-115 people in line at the Cobb Elections office on Waddell St and it took an hour and a half. Yay democracy!

I voted early here in Texas, on Thursday. Stopped in on my way home from the office. I guess the time of day and the small size of the town in which I live influenced this, but the wait was literally nil. The elderly election workers were sitting around bored. Took me a while to find my voter registration card (I don't know why -- we just moved here for the start of the fall semester, and I slipped the card in my wallet as soon as it came, but it was in the least accessible part of my wallet, based on frequency of use -- and yes, I am always this anal about stupid little things).

So anyway, I went in, got 'verified,' and they handed me three paper ballots and said to pick one. I briefly wondered about this. It was a new thing for me, never had that happen. I presume it was to make sure I wasn't being handed a 'loaded' ballot -- i.e., by picking from a random assortment, election fraud is less likely. This is the only thing I can think of for that -- it was a little odd.

The ballot was a simple piece of paper with ovals next to candidate names. Like taking a scan-tron test, I had to fill in the ovals next to my choice of candidates (I also had the option of voting a straight party ticket for all elections, including local offices, by filling in the one party oval; I opted not to do this. I voted for candidates of different parties, but I probably wouldn't have done it even if voting for all one party --it just seems like taking the cheap way out. But then, I feel compelled to fill in the oval next to the names of people running uncontested, so what do I know.)

I filled in the ovals at a little voting "station" separated by cardboard from other stations, and then I slipped my ballot into a metal box and took my "I Voted" sticker.

I think I take voting for granted. This election season has been wearying and annoying. I am one of those people who values real debate but sees mostly yelling and punditry from both sides, and I'm sick of it. So while I knew who I was going to vote for, I would have enjoyed seeing the level of debate in this country raised to the point that people actually listened to each other rather than waiting for pauses so they could attack back. It depresses me, and it made me feel like voting and elections in this country don't really reflect debate and consideration but rather knee-jerk political reactions to a lot of hate-filled invective.

Sorry for the negativity -- you asked for my voting narrative :-)

Stupid me, I put this in the wrong entry. I'll repost to the correct entry.