(I love that comic. More here.)
I voted this morning at the local elementary school. I knew it was going to be busy, and I expected a wait, so my expectations were set pretty low. I planned on the possibility of being there for a while, and my plan was pretty accurate.
For the first 45 mins or so, things were really moving. The line ran the entire length of the school hallway, but it was shuffling forward at a regular pace. No worries, no problems. Plenty of time to say good morning to people from the neighborhood, and to meet new people near me in line.
Things began to suck when we got closer to the cafeteria, where the actual voting was taking place. In order to validate the voter registration, entry to the cafeteria was broken up into 3 sections of the alphabet by last name. A-G on the left, H-O in the middle, and P-Z on the right. My wife, with her hyphenated last name, jumped ahead of me and about 20-30 other people. Cool for her, not realizing yet how badly I was about to get effed.
I started noticing that two sections of the alphabet were moving very rapidly, while my section was rather stagnant. More and more people got called ahead of my group. I'm still not stressed, really, but starting to wonder how the array of names could be that lopsided. I'm still in the hall outside the cafeteria, so I can't really figure out the details of the situation yet.
After a while, I'm getting a little worked up. Between 75-100 people with lucky last names bestowed upon them have passed our sorry lot in the hallway. The election hostess is passing BS and illogical excuses about how the names have been divided, and our group was just really large. The words weren't hers, she was just relaying the same BS that somebody inside had told her to say.
FINALLY, over 1/2 an hour later, I get into the cafeteria. My wife has voted, left the school, driven to work, and already started her day. The first 45 minutes in line covered the entire length of the school. The last 30 paces had taken another 45 minutes. But now that I was inside, I could identify the source of my stress: BINGO LADY.
Bingo Lady was validating I.D. and cross-referencing names against the master book; the gate-keeper into the actual polling station. Does "Bingo Lady" put a picture in your mind? If so, I'm sure it's accurate. She was near 80, shaky, mumbling, and craning her head back to read the master book thru the bottom half of her bi-focals. And she was REALLY EFFING SLOW. She could have spotted the hell out of B-14 or I-23, but looking up last names alphabetically just wasn't in her skill set.
Bless her heart, she was out there working the election, which is 1000x more responsibility than I took today. But DAMN did somebody at that polling station put her in the wrong position. There were a dozen other people who could have been shuffled around to make it work better. There had to be someone on that team with better vision and reading skills, and I'm sure there was other tasks that Bingo Lady could have managed very well. The fucktards in charge of the day simply failed on organizing their people.
Each year after voting, I walk out of the school with a smile and sense of pride for doing my part. Today I left bitter. My smile today was stolen by the fucktards.
I will happily wait 2 hours, if that's what it takes to vote. As it was, I waited 45 minutes to vote, plus another 45 minutes for stupidity.
Side note, much happier news - my kid voted in his first election today. I'm pretty proud that he stepped up and did his part,too. Not a lot of young'uns do that.
Now that I'm done venting, I'd really like to hear your voting stories. For real. Click here, or use the link below, and lemme know....
21 comments:
showed up at 10:45, left by 10:50. I spent more time walking to and from my car than I did in the building.
Dave Moore
in and out - in less than a minute it seemed :) no line whatsoever.
so you should move to Knoxville with me :) Frederick county is the way to go on voting day :)
Oh no, you are making your blog interactive.
I waited to vote after the morning rush. Voted at Lake Braddock High School at 9:45 AM. No lines.
You can plan your vote better when you are unemployed.
Affie and I got there at 7am and it took a little over 40 minutes. Compared to how long we had anticipated it taking, I wasn't really stressed about it!
However, while we were in line outside an ambulance pulled up and hauled someone away! Maybe it was OUR Bingo Lady?!
got to the polling place in fairfax around 7:15. any of you that know me that that is extraordinarily early. line was out the front door, took about 15 minutes.
my experience with the line mirrored Missy's as opposed to PJ's. However, although I got to the front of the line my name was not in the book. this is although i changed everything online and clicked the appropriate box with DMV (printed out the page as well which i still have) etc.
as a result, i was taken to antother table. I had to fill out two documents and then was given a paper ballot and told that the validity of these ballots is confirmed at the government center. i was told that in order to make a better chance of my vote being counted i would need to go to the fairfax county government center wednesday at noon when the validity of these ballots is confirmed.
since the lady who was helping had the attention span of a gnat, this took another 20 minutes.
ironically enough, about 6 weeks ago, there were ACORN folks outside the Ballston Metro station one morning and I told one of them all the steps i had taken and they had said that i should be good to go.
Drew
I showed up at 6:06am to vote. About 150 people in front of me. I waited about 20 min to get to the cafeteria and had the same lady checking my ID. People behind me with other last names going right in to vote...Im waiting 20 more min for the bingo lady.(maybe she was working 2 places??) I get my "scan tron"...and then have to wait 3 min for a booth to open up. I read over the sheet. I get to the booth, vote, and hand in my card. None of the people in the other booths left. It was last in-first out. Come-on you must have a clue who you are voting for before you get there???? So my experience was the same minus an hour.
Just went to go vote downtown Indy and I have to agree with Dave. It took me more time to walk to the church, find the room than it did to vote. There were two booths open. Yea for living in a voting precinct where no one can afford a car to register to vote.
I do want to add as a side note, someone asked if I get to vote in Indiana and Virginia. Yes, you can vote in as many states as you've lived in.
Voted at my local elemantary school-Sugarland Run....no line...in and out in 4 minutes (including voting time). No Bingo ladies north of Rt 7 (outside the Library that is).
Got to my school at 6:45am out at 8:45am. Bingo MAN plus faulty optical machine :( The line was at least 200 long and wrapped all the way around the outside of the school. They did walk around with hot coffee and some candy too though :)
I left work around noon and got back around 1:15. Not bad considering I work in Reston and live/vote in Sterling. Only about five people in front of me. Did take about 15 minutes because they only had ONE electronic machine. They did also have paper though. Glad to report there were no fucktards at Claude Moore park. Just a ton of annoying ass kids
HEY HEY!
left my house at 9:30am back in my bed at 9:47am YEEHAA!!!!!!!!
I voted absentee two weeks ago, so that I wouldn't have to worry about all that jazz and then commute to the city. I was fully expecting to have to wait and bought dinner on my way home from work. Unfortunately when I walked in, I didn't even have to sit down before they called me over to a voting booth. So I ended up waiting to eat my meal until I got home and it was cold. But that was the only stress I had around my voting experience. =)
Well unlike my brother I got the lucky last name and I was in the "lucky" line with no one else. Got to walk right in, meet my bingo lady in training (she only had the shaky hands and smokers voice going for her) found my name at the top of the "H's" (thanks DAD) waited a extra 5 minutes to do electronic instead of walking right into a paper ballot. You know a opportunity to push a button has never escaped me. All in all about 10 minutes total. I think maybe next time leave work a little early or long lunch instead of first thing may help out a bit.
In at 9:00, out at 9:03...wait, that's not the normal way for TC to handle biz!!!
I parked right in front of City Hall at 2:32, voted and was back in my car before 2:34. Kentucky is great! Except for the fact that you can't buy beer until after 6 pm on election days. But I was prepared for this and bought my beer yesterday since the closest beer store is 30 minutes away. OK, so maybe Kentucky isn't all that great...
I voted in Sterling and the place was completely empty. I was the only one voting at that time (around 2pm).
I was at the polls at 7 and didn't get done til 8:10am. They weren't fucktards, just did not have things organized for the average person to know where they should be.
There were 3 different precincts voting in the hallway of the school. Each precinct had 2 lines, one to sign in and one to vote. The only way people knew what to do was from the ones that were already there waiting in line.
My visit was like my brother's, the other 2 precincts had absolutely nobody in line (5-10 at the most) and mine was going out the front door. We had 3 polling machines compared to 2 for the others.
I was really impressed that we had knowledgable people helping us with the new electronic touch screens. I mean last presidential election, we had the ballots that you poke a hole in the paper to cast your vote. WV is really coming around!
Tina S.
I got up early as hell to vote. Mainly because I woke up at 2 a.m. for no reason. So I read a book until 7 and left for the booths and work. Took me 5 minutes to vote. Traveling to work wasn't even a problem. Usually, it takes me an hour to an hour and a half. I swear, I think some people just chug a handle of jack then put blindfolds on while driving down the toll road. Its insane. No logic. Last year for the primaries I was in a traffic jam so bad it made national news. I still have that scarred in my mind.
Went to vote with the family (Lorenzo, Elliott and Chris B.) at Herndon Middle School. We went at about 10:30am, and were out of there in less than 10 minutes. We all stood in the same A-G line, and ours was the only line with people in it at all....no bingo ladies, though.
It was Lorenzo's (and my) first American election. He was all excited because he got a sticker, and I was happy to get free coffee at Starbucks and free ice cream at Ben and Jerry's :)
Planned to be there by 6am. Slept till 1pm. I was very anxious that there were going to be long lines, because I had a raging hang-over. So I walked in with TJ and Karl, voted, got my sticker, and I said to the guy as I was leaving (4min later) "it's days like these that I feel great to NOT be a felon!!" Then we wandered around TJ's old elementary school and reminisced about days past. What a great day!!
Shelley, I'm LMAO. Well, PJ already told you my experience. lol so nothing more to add.
:P
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