Suffrage

I voted yesterday, and it was painless. No suffering in sight, except the guy that came in looking for the driver's license that he left there on Saturday. There were at least 20 yellow-vested volunteers, and at least 20 privacy booths. I see problems for Tuesday, though.

My city is using all paper ballots. This election has so many issues that the paper ballots are two pages, front and back. Naturally, the issues are almost incomprehensible; anyone who thinks they'll vote to have a lark and hasn't got a plan is either going to end up voting for stuff they don't stand for, or making cell phone calls from the booth.

I'm lucky that one of the early voting sites is right in my very own neighborhood rec center, but I would have driven pretty much anywhere in the city to get the task done before the crush. Because it's early voting, they had to provide ballots for every different precinct in the city, so the person who signs you in calls out a number: "419!" and someone else goes to a six foot tall rolling file and selects the correct ballot.

When the actual election day rolls around, it's back to the fire station, and the ballots will all be the same. That doesn't mean that the process is going to be quick, though. It's still a paper ballot, it's still in the fire station, sharing space with the fire trucks. If you've never stood in a long line OUTSIDE the fire station for a few hours on a November evening, you've got a new version of COLD to experience. It's still a LONG ballot, with incomprehensible issues. It's still on a work day.

If you haven't voted yet, I think you should. Practice suffrage without suffering.