Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

My wait: 30 minutes. Not bad considering the 6-hour waits elsewhere.

It seems so ridiculous. I mean, I guess they weren’t expecting such a high voter turnout, but the whole process could be so much more organized. Why do I have to go to a specific place? Why can’t I have some number assigned where I could go anywhere, punch it in, and then all my info would pop up? And why oh why isn’t Election Day a frigging holiday? I’m lucky in that it doesn’t matter if I’m a little late for work, or even if I need to take some time in the middle of the day, but other people just can’t.

So to see high voter turn out is even more awesome. It’s like, Fuck you, I’m still voting even if I have work that day, even if I have to wait six hours and camp out overnight.

I saw something on the news this morning about a case in Philadelphia, in which the chairwoman of the voting commission made ridiculous excuses about the long waits. Her quote:

Did you see people waiting for baseball tickets all night long outside? Did you see the line that they wanted a new iPod? They all waited overnight and waited in line. Do you go to the supermarket? You see people waiting in line? They complain, they grumble, some of them. Some of them just talk. So what is the difference?

Uh, yeah, cuz buying an iPhone is the same as my constitutional right as an American citizen.

Anyway, despite my short wait, the polling place seemed sort of chaotic. There was, for some reason, lots of yelling, and a lot of volunteers missing teeth. But I shouldn’t judge.

I had to do a paper ballot since I sent in my change of address card at the last minute, and as I was waiting to hand it in, this Chinese volunteer lady asked, “Did you sign it?” She was looking at the blank Spanish-language side. “Yes,” I said, but she still grabbed my envelope, and I had to literally wrestle it out of her hand to show her the other side with my signuature. Sheesh!

Now I’m exhausted, but it felt really good to cast my ballot.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 7:40 am and is filed under news, rant and/or rave. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.