November 5: I'd Move to Texas, But I'd Have to Clean Up: or, It Was a Full Moon

Yes, I'm still sulking. I went to bed Tuesday night with a better understanding of the frustration that creates Militias. I woke up yesterday with a better understanding of the "what's the point?" feeling that makes a lot of people skip voting. I really REALLY despise Barbara Boxer, the check-kiting hypocrite. She couldn't even bring herself to be a good winner, and never even threw Fong a crumb. He, in contrast, was a real gentleman.
I did get a couple of victories. It looks like my choices got on the Fire Board (and, actually, that is important.) I got my choice for State Assembly, though my Senator lost BIG. (We get another "throw-money-at-it (YOUR money, that is, not mine! *I* need a pay raise!)" Democrat there.) The only real ray of sunshine was that Vic Fazio's seat now belongs to a Republican. Also, a couple of the Propositions I didn't want were defeated, though mostly I lost big there, as well. Proposition 10, tax the evil tobacco for (violins, please, maestro!) Our Little Children, proposed by that great legislative genius Rob Reiner, may pass. You see, I wonder what happens when the smokers get taxed into quitting: are (violins)Our Little Children(/violins) going to be deprived then, or by some chance am I going to get a huge tax to cover these Terribly Worthwhile programs? A use tax that actually went to smokers, to prevention or health programs, that would be good, but this is like the National Tobacco Settlement being scuttled by greed. 'Tis a very bad law.
Clinton's Hundred Thousand Cops expire this year, and the same thing applied. Locally they attempted to put on a sales tax ("temporary", yeah right!) to pay for them, and it was defeated. The Sheriff is annoyed (though he's had everything else his way) and growls that it's because of the low crime rate. (NEXT time he'll have enough sense to let the criminals loose for a month before the election, I guess.)
There was also a local school bond measure that I favored, and it mustered the 67% it needed. Yay. Some of these schools are 100 years old (though the average age is 40 years) and haven't had any repairs. See below for what we did to the local one's paint job. Oops.

Still, I may need to move back to Wyoming where the Governor and Representative are Republican, and Libertarians snatch 3-4% of the vote. Of course, it's also the Blizzard State. Perhaps I'll rethink.

So, Tuesday I didn't sleep well, as I usually don't before a big event. I reluctantly woke at 5 ("Grummmmph, whose bright idea was this, anyhow?") coming out of a really ridiculous Voting Board dream. The polling place, in my dream, was a neighbor's house about a block away. I apparently, in the dream, remembered the mystery I'd just finished so I searched the place while setting up. Mostly what I found was his absentee ballot, and his wife's. In the dream, I absentmindedly opened them (this comes from opening Bernadette's business mail to see if it should be sent to her or just discarded). SuperPatriot Jan then took over the dream and was trying to reseal the envelopes so no one would know they'd been opened when Horror! the householder came back. He was all accusatory and I was petrified he would expose my great sin, but he was only annoyed that I was stealing the affections of all the young men. (From him? Probably better we don't explore down that dark corridor of my mind!) I was still feeling relief yet apprehension when the accursed alarm rang.

We got up, we stumbled around, we made coffee, and we went to fetch John at 6. We got to the polling place at just past 6 and Agnes was already there. I had already decided to turn the table so it was parallel to the booths rather than against the wall, but I knew Agnes would put up a fight. Oh, she did. She told me the school wouldn't allow it, so I went over to the custodian and asked if it was OK. Of course it was. We needed to give room to the children to walk past to breakfast from the bus, but otherwise, no problem. Actually, my setup is better at breakfast time. Agnes must have said 30 times that it would be colder. Fortunately, Tuesday we had good weather, so her assertion wasn't proven. And the table stayed the way I wanted it. (I'm really the boss, but Agnes really doesn't want to admit that!)      
Ro = Roster In= Index Ba = Ballots Mi = Miscellaneous Box = Ballot Box

The table is a school cafeteria table, with the benches. Agnes insists on being on the "public" side to hand out the ballots, while when I do it, I sit on the other side. Early in the day, Rich went to sit on the bench and fell off, and I nearly did the same thing later. We set up the signs (and started to do so with tape, till the custodian asked us to use tacks. We tried to get them down, but pulled the paint off in a couple of spots. Argh.)
By 5 minutes to 7 we were ready and there were 5 people ready to vote. Interestingly enough, the very first one was the father of the young man who closed us down at 8. I showed the empty ballot box around, declared the polls open, and sealed the box, and we got down to business. There were only two times all day when no one was there, either signing in or voting, and we had lines a few times. I think we got over 60% in person, though we don't know how many of the absentee voters in the precinct voted.

The buses started unloading kids for breakfast about 7:20, and that was noisy. One really nice thing, that I praised the school for, was that the campus monitor set out cones for voter parking and taped signs to them. Of course, as I said before, they did want people to vote, since they were trying to get that bond issue. Once school started, at 7:50, it was fairly peaceful till 11 or so, lunch. Some of the kids came over to see what we were doing, and got to "vote" with the sample ballot. They got stickers. We RAN OUT OF STICKERS! (And the people at the end complained, too, they wanted their stickers! I always thought they were kind of silly, but people really like them.) I believe it's important to get kids to want to vote, even if they vote "wrong" when they grow up. Voters are more interested in what "They" are doing with our laws and our money, and the more people who vote, the less likely we are to wake up one day with our country given away overnight. I felt the same way when I was involved with adult literacy and trying to get my student to register to vote. Otherwise, things just HAPPENED to him.
We had poll watchers, a first for me. The couple we had almost all day were involved with Measure S, the school bond issue. They would check the index, and then go make phone calls. The school district was worried, as the population is mostly over-50 and possibly not interested in spending money on school repairs, so they wanted all the school parents to be sure to turn up. We had another set, Republicans, who were walking the pricinct to get out the vote.
I read a posting from someone in Virginia (on an entirely unrelated topic) who commented that they don't ask for picture ID and anyone could come in and pretend to be someone else and vote that person's ballot. I don't think that would have worked at this precinct. We're not in the precinct, but we're neighbors and knew a lot of the people (the father-and-son bookends, for instance.) At our own precinct they see us come in the garage door and they turn to the right page. And the voters know each other. There were a LOT of conversations going on as they waited in line, or after they voted. No one was challenged, though we would have known what to do if they had been. We had 9 provisional ballots, mostly people who'd lost their absentee ballots or decided to come in and vote instead. These are put into a separate envelope and as soon as it's verified that they actually haven't tried to vote twice, the envelope is opened and the ballot counted. Two of the provisionals were people who had moved: we filled out all the paperwork but I don't think their votes will end up counting. This is not my decision to make (thank goodness I don't have to interpret the law) and at least now they are properly registered. At 6 one man came in needing to know how to vote, and I told him what paperwork he would need, then realized once he was out the door that I hadn't checked where he lived so I could tell him where he'd vote. I worried about this, but he got back by 7 with the proper forms. Turned out his precinct was about 5 blocks away. I apologized profusely, but fortunately he wasn't mad. (I read in the paper about one guy who was so upset he swept the table clean!) We had one woman who'd been sent all over, but finally found us. In the first 15 minutes we got a guy who was supposed to be voting across the street, but our signage was better.
We did one provisional too many, an "inactive voter" who had also changed her name. However, I'd rather have one too many than not enough.

I realized at about 10 that I hadn't posted the official write-in candidates. You can write Mickey Mouse in, but if he hasn't qualified, the vote won't count. While I doubted there were many write-ins (in fact, none), I knew my coordinator would be looking. I finally figured I must have left them at home, so I took off, dashed home, found the forms next to the phone (and left the absentee add-ons, which were supposed to be turned in at the end of the day, too) and raced out... locking my keys in the house. Argh. So I went to the spare, which excited Sailor no end. He'd seen us packing the cooler in the morning and he'd sat so angelically and been SO good and SO hopeful that we would take him along on this wonderful excursion, and we'd disappointed him. I finally got the key to work, and then it jammed in the lock. I thought for a while I would have to leave it, with the dog to stop breakins, but I finally got it out, broke Sailor's heart again, and dashed to the car and raced back. There was no parking place! I pulled two illegal U's and got one at the other end of the lot. What a waste of a perfectly good break!
Rich, however, made the big mistake of the day. We'd issued a provisional ballot and told the man how to do it (vote, take your stub, fold the ballot, seal it in the blue envelope, and take it to the ballot box.) Rich had just taken over for the ballot box watcher when the gentleman was finished, and handed him the ballot, which Rich put in the box, and then the guy asked Rich "what do I do with this?" and handed him the blue envelope. Oh, argh. So I made a panicked call to the coordinator, and she said to put the envelope aside and she'd call the office. She'd just been at another precinct with TWO of these. She suggested we make sure we gave clear instructions. The whole board then heard me tell the next person with a provisional in words of one syllable how to do it. It didn't help, he, too had the ballot in one hand and the envelope in the other. When the coordinator visited, she told us to write what happened on the outside of the envelope and not to count it at the end of the day, just to put it in on top of the others. She didn't even look at the signs!

One guy came to Rich and said "I did it wrong." Well, we snatched the ballot away, wrote "spoiled" on it and issued him another ballot before he could announce, feebly, that he was joking. I wonder if he makes bomb jokes on airplanes and gun jokes around the Secret Service? Somehow I doubt he'll do THAT again!

Every so often Rich and I did our "We've been married 33 years and you haven't" act. It's difficult to describe. It's just that we seem to click now and again on some cosmic level and leave everyone around wondering "who WERE those people??" I choose to think this is a GOOD thing. We got three people to sign the "help wanted" list, possibly because of the article in the paper. I said to Rich, "we're having so much fun, they want to play too!" (What can I say, we were getting pretty punchy by then.)

After the son left at about 8:10, we folded everything up and put it away. At that time, I put the help wanted form and the comment sheet in the envelope where they belonged... only, when we were finishing and doing the final check, the comment form was gone. Again. As happened in June. I have no idea how this happens and can only suspect Agnes EATS them. We counted the ballots after putting them in piles of 25, and were 5 off. So we recounted each pile, and found the missing 5, bundled them up the way we were supposed to, sealed and signed everything, and went HOME. Well, that is, Agnes went home, we took John home and then the ballots to the County Office. They unpacked us efficiently and took the stuff out of my hands, and we were home (to the bad news) by 10. It really was easier than the primary. But it was a VERY long day. Then I went to bed and was too exhausted to get to sleep.