Yesterday was the municipal primary election in my city. Apparently no one in my community knew about it, because when I showed up to cast my ballot there was just me. Well, and those two people over the age of 70 who got off at the wrong bus stop and decided to wander into the building marked “VOTE HERE.”
That’s fine by me. Voting is a civic responsibility that I’ve always taken very seriously, even if no one else does. Part of it has to do with my strong belief in the right of the people to choose their government leaders. A bigger part of it is the fact that I get to spend a few minutes touching buttons on a computer much cooler than the one I own.
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| It would have been dynamite had these guys voted, too |
The polls were less than an hour from closing when I headed to the voting venue nearest my house. When I arrived at Outpost Catering I found four cars in the parking lot. Had I inspected them closely I’m sure I would have found three of them packed with cake, nuts and mints, and preparing to depart for a wedding reception. I didn’t bother, although I could have used a mint to freshen my breath for the three souls I found inside the vast banquet hall -- one of whom looked like the janitor, and needed the mint more than me.
Once inside I was met by a poll worker who asked for a picture ID. I handed him my driver’s license and nearly my Visa card, which, fortunately, became unstuck from the license and landed on the table, or I might have been accused of buying votes. After meticulously examining my license -- maybe he was looking to see if I was an organ donor (I am, except for my large intestine) -- he pointed me to a man distributing the voting cards. When I stepped up to receive my card the man smiled, entered some information into a machine and gave me a card with a computer chip that was probably already programmed to re-elect Barack Obama.
I took the card and made the long walk to the other end of the room, where five lonely voting machines were lined up side by side. The silence was so loud you could almost hear the electric current running through the machines. It sounded something like “Pick me! Pick me!”
I chose a machine in the middle, hoping two other voters would come in, use the machines on either side of me and commence to copying the answers off my screen. No such luck.
Undeterred, I slid the voting card into the appropriate slot in the machine. The screen came to life and voting directions appeared in digital luminescence.
For a moment I considered how far voting technology had come in my lifetime, and how the public had embraced each improvement:
THE PUBLIC, circa 1980: We don’t trust paper ballots, because voting intentions can be misconstrued. We need computer voting machines.
THE PUBLIC, circa 2000: We don’t trust computer voting, because there’s no paper trail. Give us paper ballots.
THE PUBLIC, circa 2010: We love voting by cell phone. For “American Idol.”
At last the screen with the ballot came up. I could choose between two candidates for mayor. They were, as follows:
1. You don’t know him, but he’s for jobs and children; and
2. You don’t know him, but he’s for jobs and children.
My selection made -- the quarter came up “heads” -- it was time to pick three candidates for city council at-large seats from a slate of contenders. For this important decision I relied on my proven method for choosing candidates: a couple of choruses of “Eenie-meenie-miny-mo.”
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| Voting machines lead very lonely lives |
After what seemed like 5.6 seconds, I was done. The voting card popped out of the machine and a cartoon President Obama thanked me for giving him four more years to spend my great-grandchildren’s money. Just kidding about that last part. It was actually Joe Biden.
I returned the voting card to the poll worker, who I could swear was staring at that area of my body where the large intestine is located, and made my way to the door.
A feeling of patriotism swept over me. I’d participated in the great American tradition of democracy. Later that night I participated in another great American tradition:
Waiting to hear that my candidates lost.
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