Local Elections

I just came from voting. Because I don't trust the machines, I voted by paper ballot. I got through most of it until I got to the school board races, and then discovered they had given me the ballot for San Bernardino City.

The sweet poll worker initially said, "just don't vote in those races." I had to convince here that I actually wanted to vote in the school board races. In fact, if I had taken her advice, my vote wouldn't have counted IN ANY of the races.

For some reason, my polling place had several packets of ballots from all over the county.

If you're voting by paper, be sure they give you the right ballot.

Excellent job, whiskey! Most people who take the time to bother to vote wouldn't necessarily have noticed something like that. I know that in the recall election, my ex didn't fill in the bar correctly. When I told her that her vote wouldn't be counted, she angrily denied that she'd done it incorrectly. When I had her look it up on the sample ballot instructions and she discovered that she'd indeed filled it in wrong, she hit the roof and began ranting and raving about being disenfranchised. "Welcome to FLORIDA!" I gloated.

In fact, there's nothing funny about it. Designing ballots so that mismarked votes occur, tossing out valid votes because a tiny smudge went outside the bubble -- as happened to thousands of Donna Frye's votes for mayor of San Diego, costing her the election -- and other outrages simply should not be allowed ot happen in the 21st Century. How difficult is it, in this day and age, to ensure the most basic right of citizenship??? I won't even get into the issues of why other countries should trust our advice on running a democracy when we do such a piss-poor job of it ourselves.

I contacted the registrar of voters, and the woman I spoke to said she didn't know why my polling place had so many different ballots. She said they would get someone out there to check on things.

It makes me wonder if all the machines are set correctly.