Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.
- from Mort by Terry Pratchett
In the Bay Area, nine out of ten bumper stickers shout support for Kerry/Edwards. The tenth bumper sticker whispers support for W, as though displaying the incumbent's last name could lead to public humiliation. I wish there were more stickers out there showing support for third party candidates running for president. This opinion, of course, comes from somebody who wouldn't dare put a sticker, of any kind, anywhere near his car's bumper, or his own bumper for that matter, but I digress.
When I first opened my sample ballot, it was shocking to find names other than Kerry and W listed in the presidential category. From all of the commercials and debates I had been brainwashed by seen on television, I was certain those two were my only choices. The other names were surely typos.
It's like grocery shopping and being asked, "Would you prefer paper or plastic?" You interrupt to answer, but the clerk keeps going, "Or possibly hemp? Or our latest addition: edible bags in cherry or diet vanilla flavors?"
My point is that it's nice to know there are more options than paper or plastic, more colors in the political spectrum than blue and red, more animals in the zoo than donkeys and elephants (what type of crappy zoo would that be?).
I voted this morning, taking an early lunch to avoid the pre-work and lunchtime rush. My polling place, occupying an empty conference room in the back of a strip mall, had five electronic voting booths and seven volunteers. After a two minutes of searching for my name, they finally found it, checked me off as voter #127 and gave me a voting card.
I entered an unoccupied booth and performed my civic duty, which primarily involved poking a touchscreen with my index finger. I feared this modern voting method would be complicated, but it wasn't, as long as the choices were on the right-hand side of the screen. Trying to make a selection on the left-hand side was slightly more difficult. It went something like this:
Right-hand Side:
Me: Yes.
Screen: Yes selected.
Left-hand Side:
Me: Yes.
Screen: Please try again.
Me: Yes.
Screen: Sorry, I wasn't paying attention.
Me: Yes!
Screen: No selected!
Me: (sigh) Clear selection.
Screen: Selection cleared.
Me: Yes?
Screen: What was the question?
Me: (nearing tears) Yes.
Screen: Yes selected, crybaby.
Afterwards, I turned in the card, which was fed into a machine that counted my vote and then cleared the card for the next voter (in that sequence, so they said). Before I left, I grabbed an "I Voted!" sticker for my index finger, because after all that, it deserved it.
