Voter #16, ballot #17
Yes, I did vote today. I split my ticket but left out some court and trustee candidates that I had not researched. Note to self to do better on that the next time around. There was a glitch but it did not result in me stumbling home through pouring chads and mud, fighting back tears of frustration and despair.
I took my usual 0-skunk-30 walk and got to my polling place, which is also the elementary school the beach urchins attended, at 6:58 AM, two minutes before the polls opened. That photoooo is the line when I got there. When I got up to the check-in table, the poll workers were panicking just a bit because they couldn’t find voter 14’s application or sticker or whatever. After a bit of kerfluffle, they seemed to have the problem resolved and when it was my turn to get checked in, the volunteer wrote me down as voter #16 and handed me a ballot.
I *carefully* read the instructions for every category and *carefully* filled in the little ovals for my choices. With a bit of trepidation, I walked over and handed my application to the volunteer by the ballot-eater. It was Jackie! A former Haisley moom like me and now a dog-walker on my morning walking route. As she started to tear off the end of my ballot, she exclaimed, “Oh, your ballot number doesn’t match your voter number!” I had ballot #17. I squelched the panic that was starting to rise to my throat as she took my application over to the check-in table. Fortunately, after a quick consultation with the check-in folks, she said, “go ahead and feed your ballot in.” The machine ate my ballot without complaint (whew) and I danced outta there and on down the familiar old lower el hallway toward home.
I can see how they make mistakes like that. Most of our hard working volunteers are bifocal wearers struggling to look up names in a big book with tiny little font sizes. When they find the name, they have to move a tiny little sticker to another book and then write a tiny little number on it. With a pen. They end up having to look back and forth between books several times. The whole process seems to invite errors. And then there is the pressure of the not-so-patient queue of waiting voters…
Everyone here voted and I’m sure the Cali kid did too. I’m sure the Cali kid totally disapproves of her moom’s little break from the polling places. I am an RGB voter and the GG calls himself “politically complex”. And he is, enough so that I can’t even quite figger what his opinions are. Sometimes we cancel each other out. I have no idea if we did this time or not. I didn’t make a final decision on many candidates until I got into the booth.
Overall, it was successful for me. I am a voter again and I always love an opportunity to walk through the hallowed halls of the Haisley Hawks Huskies. And, guess what? annarbor.com has some photoooos of my polling place, featuring none other than the beautiful Jackie with her trademark smile!
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I miss going to the actual polls. The mail in ballots seem so detached. What is a RGB voter? I’m sure I should know this…
November 2nd, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Try this again:
I remember the election of Michigan’s state university’s trustees. Missouri doesn’t do that. Mostly though, I remember it because I once went into vote and saw my Dad’s name, first, middle and last name exactly, on the ballot for trustee at EMU. I of course voted for him, but it turned out that it was not my father that was actually running.
November 2nd, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Marquis: I love this comment but I have to admit that I was absolutely cracking up to see it originally posted on my insipid navel gazing post. I was thinking, “whaaaat?” Funny in any case.
I meant to reply to Margaret’s comment but I accidentally emailed her instead, so I’ll do it now. RGB = me being a techie smart aleck. In the computer world (photoshop, web, etc.) each color is defined by the amount of red, green, and blue in the color. I won’t go any further than that with the tech stuff. The point is that photographs contain millions of colors, as opposed to black/white drawings. I see political issues in millions of colors rather than black/white. Or at least I would like to think that I do…
I would like for voting to be more convenient here but I would miss going to the polls too. But maybe that’s because my polling place is quite literally in my back yard. A quick and easy walk. Except when it’s raining chads.
November 3rd, 2010 at 7:35 am
I didn’t vote until after work this time. the line was a bit long and steady, but on the positive side the polling people had a whole day of practice behind them and knew what they were doing. although the back and forth checking of the name, birth date, address….. oy!
November 3rd, 2010 at 7:36 am
oh – and I was # 550.
November 3rd, 2010 at 11:06 am
Moving stickers around… Sounds like a pain. I’m sure Jackie and I could swap some stories. My advice to you early birds, is to wait just a little bit. We had a line at 6:00 am, and just barely were ready for them. By 6:30, the line was minimal, and we were in our groove. Wait, your polls don’t open until 7:00 am? I could sleep an hour later — maybe I should move back to A2.
November 3rd, 2010 at 11:40 am
I didn’t actually have to wait very long, maybe 15 minutes and that was because I got there before they opened. I was meeting a friend at 8, so wanted to get it done and it’s pretty impossible for me to drive all the way back across town during my workday (not because they won’t let me, it just doesn’t make sense). By the end of work I am already turning a nice orange pumpkin-like hue 🙂
November 3rd, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I had to chuckle at your description of the poll volunteers and their bifocals and looking up names in the big book and the stickers and the other book and marking with a pen and….it sounds so incredibly 1940s, doesn’t it? And something tells me it won’t be any different in 2040.