Aaah, Elections
I was a good little civic person this morning and voted in municipal elections--the first for our newly incorporated (and not yet fully incorporated and chartered) city. The whole voting process took far less time than I had anticipated.
It was certainly interesting, though. As I approached the school where I was to vote, a young man in a JROTC uniform asked me if I was a voter. My mind took an interesting tangent at that point, because "are you a voter?" is actually a different question from what I'm certain he meant to ask, which was "are you here to vote?" I replied in the affirmative--the correct answer for both questions--and he gave me directions to the polls, just in case all the signs inside the main entrance to the school weren't enough. Annoyingly, there were plenty of signs inside. There were few signs outside. It took me a moment to decide to try the main entrance.
Once at the actual poll location in the gymnasium (while high schoolers played basketball before classes started), I filled out a small form, showed my identification twice, had my name checked off on the rolls, voted after only a little difficulty on the part of the touchscreen, turned in my access card, and left. Total time elapsed since showing up at the school: 5 minutes. I had expected a much linger wait time. I suppose people don't get as excited about municipal elections as national elections, but I still expected a longer wait. I'd taken a book (The Book Nobody Read) in with me to pass the time in line. Ah well. I'm certainly not complaining.
I was intrigued to notice that I was the third voter of the day, though. I went in about an hour after the polls opened, and I was only the third voter. That makes me wonder how things will turn out, and how many people will bitch after they didn't vote. It's always vaguely amazing to me how people complain after turning down the opportunity to be involved in the process.
It was certainly interesting, though. As I approached the school where I was to vote, a young man in a JROTC uniform asked me if I was a voter. My mind took an interesting tangent at that point, because "are you a voter?" is actually a different question from what I'm certain he meant to ask, which was "are you here to vote?" I replied in the affirmative--the correct answer for both questions--and he gave me directions to the polls, just in case all the signs inside the main entrance to the school weren't enough. Annoyingly, there were plenty of signs inside. There were few signs outside. It took me a moment to decide to try the main entrance.
Once at the actual poll location in the gymnasium (while high schoolers played basketball before classes started), I filled out a small form, showed my identification twice, had my name checked off on the rolls, voted after only a little difficulty on the part of the touchscreen, turned in my access card, and left. Total time elapsed since showing up at the school: 5 minutes. I had expected a much linger wait time. I suppose people don't get as excited about municipal elections as national elections, but I still expected a longer wait. I'd taken a book (The Book Nobody Read) in with me to pass the time in line. Ah well. I'm certainly not complaining.
I was intrigued to notice that I was the third voter of the day, though. I went in about an hour after the polls opened, and I was only the third voter. That makes me wonder how things will turn out, and how many people will bitch after they didn't vote. It's always vaguely amazing to me how people complain after turning down the opportunity to be involved in the process.