Voting Day

Nothing big really happened today. I didn't have any real shouting matches, I didn't get to stare anyone down, nothing. (Don't worry, I took care of all that and more today at work. I had a scorched earth policy today. I plan to work from home tomorrow.)

Anyway, we had a pretty large turnout for a primary election. We had 442 voters. I know, that sounds low, but we didn't have purple finger dye, and no one was being threatened that they would be killed if they voted, so I guess everyone (but the 442) decided to stay home.

One really old lady came in to vote. I should have looked to see how old she was. Anyhow, she went up the voting machine, I showed her where to stick her card, then walked away when she got the information screen, to give her some privacy. About 2 minutes later, she came up and said "It didn't let me vote. It voted a blank ballot. What happened?" I stuck her card back in, it said a ballot had been cast. I asked her what happened, told her the ballot was cast, she said "I was reading it, and it flickered and went away." Well, this didn't happen, it sounded like she kept pressing the button over and over until it voted.

The rule is one ballot per person. She wanted another ballot, I told her she couldn't have one, then our counts would be inflated at night, and it wouldn't be fair to any other voter. (We couldn't for sure say if the ballot was blank, after all...) She got madder, wanted to talk to someone else, but luckily for her, she was already talking to the highest authority at the polling place. By this time, she was ticking me off, demanding her new ballot. I called the county clerks office, they verified the rule, and I got just the slightest bit more forceful with her, got her out of the way of the other voters, and talked her out of the building. I indicated that if she really wanted to talk to someone else, she could head over to the county clerks office and talk to them. (Which the best they could do is offer a provisional ballot, which they would eventually not count after finding her signature in the register.) I look forward to helping her again in November.

I was on my feet pretty much the entire time from 6am to 9pm. By the time I got done, my feet, ankles, knees, and hips really hurt. Last night I ended up not being able to sleep in the bed, I went out to my chair, put the lower body vibrator button on, and watched "2001: A Space Odessey." I got to the part where they were landing on the moon, and somewhere in the 10 minute landing sequence, I fell asleep. This morning, I woke up, although my knees and hips felt better, my feet and ankles did not. I called and got a ride into work. Things went downhill from there. (I forgot to take my medicine for one, secondly, today was supposed to be pancake day, but the pancake guy didn't make it in.)

Long story longer, the new voting machines worked well. 441 out of 442 voters agree with me.