free to choose.
Originally published at kendrak's attack. You can comment here or there.
yesterday was a nice breather after tuesday. being a poll worker is interesting- some people are very excited to vote, so excited that they don’t seem to care about lines or anything, others seem to see it as a burden and take it out on the workers. i initially signed up to be a poll worker to combat the slowness of the polls. i’d never be hostile about it, but i’d think “if only they had younger (faster) people helping out…” so i did it, not to be a hypocrite. i also like that we are a democracy and recognize how important voting is, so helping out is just another way to show i care. i felt a little frustrated the precinct’s most elderly worker would take 5 minutes to look up somebody’s name, but i also know she cares as much as i do, so i just tried to compensate best i could. (i was master of telling people which polling place they should go to if they weren’t on our rolls and explaining provisional ballots.)
there were also the “independent inspectors”. it was hard not to think of some of them as gadflies- coming in, looking sour, saying “harrumph” and then leaving- but there were others who were also full of election cheer. it was good to remind us that we were official agents of the electoral process and the oath in the morning was real.
for the most part, voter turnout seemed light. given the neighbourhood most people were allright, though in the morning and just after 5:15 pm there were quite a few obnoxious people. you know the “my time is too valuable to be wasting here, give me special priveledges!” people. one particularly rude lady yelled at the person doing the sign-in, and was very condescending. i was a bit condescending in my instructions on how to mark the ballot and she still messed that up, she knew better i guess. ot was also infuriating how many people moaned about the lack of touch-screen voting and lack of a paper trail in the same breath. yeah it’s 2006, but we still have work to do.
the day was long- 6:00am to about 9:30pm- but i’ll do it again next time. it also looks like it was all for good, since allen is going to concede, giving the democrats the senate and the house. i’m a little pleased, but mostly because i hope there aren’t any polling scandals on the magnatude of 2000 and 2004.
freedom to choose, and america’s chosen to let the president know they’re tired of his shennanigans. good on them. if only people will listen.