Tue 6 Nov 2007
Uninspiring voting day II: return of the yawn!
Posted by David under reviews
[2] Comments
Well, I had to follow up from my post back in May about the very uninteresting primary ballot. Well, today was the general election, and … well, like most sequels, it wasn’t as impressive as the original, but definitely a variation on the same theme.
In May there were literally no contested elections on my ballot. On today’s ballot, there were two decisions to make: A normal race for mayor, and a “pick three out of four” for the three At Large City Council seats. I was the only voter there the whole time I was there, which admittedly wasn’t very long. I remain disappointed by the non-printing electronic voting machine.
*yawn* At least the first time was fresh and new. Even if this vote wasn’t quite as boring, it was less impressively boring, so in some sense, even more boring.
Well, in Shaker Heights we had a choice of four out of six for city council.
We could vote for a state issue that the supreme court said did not get
enough signatures to be on the ballot and thus would not be counted. We did
get to vote on one tax renewal issue. Our electronic machines, however did
have a paper trail. Our vote was printed on paper and then we could tell it
to register our vote. THen our paper printout was absorbed into the voting
machine like the tape on a cash register. The polling place was nearly
empty. Pretty boring ballot for us too.
Yeah, I agree David. I was sort of excited about “going to the polls” (how quaint compared to the election-by-mail I’ve been doing)… but it was sort of anti-climatic. The best part was the “I Voted” sticker, which I wanted to wear on my shirt next to a “Be Nice To Me – I Gave Blood Today” sticker, so I could run around town and get free doughnuts and smiles for being such an upstanding citizen.