Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Adventures in voting

  1. Walk past the polling station with its American flag posted in a planter to another set of doors thinking they would not have put the voting booths in the Catholic church's sanctuary.
  2. Enter those doors, look around and realize you have the wrong place.
  3. Turn around and spot several people leaving the other doors you passed up and realize your mistake.
  4. Walk back to the flag, look around and note the "Vote hear!" sign on the wall by the other doors.
  5. Enter the doors, spot more signs that lead past the sanctuary to a set of stairs leading to the church's basement.
  6. Follow the signs down, turn left at the bottom of the stairs and spot the election judges processing fellow citizens to conduct their suffrage.
  7. Wait patiently for a few people to be signed in.
  8. State your name clearly and somewhat loudly so the geriatric poll worker hears you.
  9. Wait for her to find your name.
  10. Sign your name upside down opposite your name.
  11. Take a yellow card and step to the next poll worker who takes your card and says "I will clear out a voting card for you."
  12. Wait while the poll worker takes a device that looks like a calculator, slides the electronic voting card and punches a few numbers.
  13. Take the card from the election worker who indicates you the short line of voters directly across the hall.
  14. Think about taking pictures while waiting politely in line with your cell phone but decide against it.
  15. Wait for 2 minutes for a electronic polling station to clear and then saunter over to the machine.
  16. Insert your card into the machine and here it click.
  17. Watch as the card ejects and the screen reads "card cleared."
  18. Insert the card in twice more with each time having the card eject and the screen read the same.
  19. Walk back to the poll worker who gave you the card, avoiding the guy who eagerly wants to take the card away from you (that's his job) and state in a clear loud voice "It says the card is cleared."
  20. Listen to the poll worker say "oh my" as if it has never happened before.
  21. Watch the worker re-insert his card into the calculator-like device and ask you what number was on the yellow card you handed him.
  22. State "Which one? The precinct number or the number one?
  23. Listen to him state "the number one" and then take the card back from him eying the blue card with Utah's state seal and a microchip doohickey in a familiar brass contact plate cover goob.
  24. Return to the same Diebold polling station and reinsert the card.
  25. Vote.
  26. Conclude the voting by carefully reviewing your selections and then pressing the "Print Ballot" virtual button.
  27. Review the printed ballot scrolling through the right-hand side of the voting device to ensure all your votes are correct.
  28. Complete voting by selecting the appropriate screen item and remove the voting card from the device.
  29. Turn in the card to the previously mentioned eager poll worker.
  30. Eye the "I voted stickers."
  31. Don't request one and leave the polling place.
  32. Walk home thinking of various ways the system might be compromised or scandolously corrupt politicians might coerce the system if they actually gave you some sort of receipt for voting.
  33. Wonder if those "I voted!" sticker could be used by scandalously corrupt politicians in trade for booze for dipsomaniacs who are getting election-day DTs.

3 comments:

  1. Don't take the stickers! They have secret tracking devices in them that register how you voted by reading your brain waves. That's why I never vote (or at least don't take the sticker).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I took a sticker, but I attached it to a stealthy little feral poodle which I then released near the Capital. I bet they're totally freaking out.

    DS

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can hear the conservative arguments emanating from the steps of government: "voting poodles! Next thing you know horses will be sleeping in hotels or marrying our daughters!"

    ReplyDelete