Wednesday - November 03, 2004

How The Day Went Yesterday

As I already mentioned, I worked in a predominantly Dummycrap precinct.  But let me tell you, the people I worked with were great folks.  The Precinct Clerk called everyone a couple of nights before and arranged for all of us to bring in a different dish and we had “Thanksgiving Dinner” as a result.  When things got slow near lunch, we’d sort of migrate over to the “buffet line” and help ourselves.  Turkey and ham slices, salads, casseroles, pies, the works.  Everything but dressing and gravy and wine.

The day began on an ominous note: when we arrived we were told by the clerk that the number of already filed absentee and early votes totaled 666.  YES!!  The number of the beast!  For those who believe in omens and portents, this might have been disturbing.

As a ballot box inspector I was responsible (along with 2 others) to make sure the voters put their ballots in correctly and that we were able to clear any malfunctions.  Boy!  Did we have malfunctions!!!!  Not mechanical, mind you.  The machines worked perfectly as designed.  The people inserting the ballots into those machines, though, left much to be desired in the intelligence department.

A total of 901 folks came through giving us almost a 65% total turnout.  We had 2 poll watchers.  I believe I know what party they represented and they were “friendlies” but I could not ask them as we could not discuss politics in the precinct.

I was very surprised by the number of young voters and started becoming distressed when I noticed that many of them were of the pierced face, tattooed body, long haired, maggot infested, greasy looking types.  Of course, they had no clue how the process worked and whereas we kept telling them that since we did not want to see how they voted they’d have to keep their ballots inside their secrecy sleeves while inserting the end of said sleeve into the opening of the scanner and then gently pushing their ballot through. Well, they’d fucked it up anyway.  This of course, necessitated we pull their ballots out and we could not help but see who they voted for.  Yep!  Kerry!

Of course, we had Republicans screw the pooch, too, but since I was stereotyping based on appearances I needed to verify who voted for whom.  And I was right.  So naturally I was concerned.  Of course, on the other side of the coin I would see clean cut young people come up and they voted Bush.  Plus lots of Hispanics.  My mood improved throughout the day.

What did not improve was my overall impression of many voters:  so many fucking incompetents!!!  I swear to Christ we need to make people take a test before we allow them into the voting booth.  People spent up to 15 minutes reading ballot amendments which they had absolutely no idea about.  The judges?  Forget it!  We had people coming in who had no clue what precinct they were in.  People voted for Bush, Kerry AND Nader!!!  They also over-voted for our senate races.  Some would make a mark, change their mind, cross it out with an “X” and fill in the circle for their choice FULLY EXPECTING the machine to figure out what they wanted!!!  I kid you not.  One guy actually told me that.  I told him, “sir, we can’t expect machine to determine voter intent.” All I got back in response was a blank stare.

This next little tidbit is sure to give you lots of warm fuzzies:  our precinct is right next door to an assisted living facility.  So the staff would wheel in the residents who often times needed assistance.  When that happens two poll workers need to go help out.  Some can’t write due to Parkinson’s or other conditions so they’d call out who they wanted and we’d fill in their ballots.  That’s OK.  Some had vision problems so we’d read the ballot to them and they’d choose after which one of us would again fill in the circles.  That’s OK, too.

The topper to beat all toppers came when this couple appeared.  Two of us went to the woman.  Two to the man.  I got the woman.  We started with the presidential race.  She went for Kerry.  Then we did the senate race. She looks at us and says, “you choose!” I looked at the Clerk with surprise who told the lady, “sorry, we can’t do that.” So the woman guessed.  The same for the next one. Finally the woman says, “I don’t want to do this anymore” and that was that.  We escorted her to the machine and she put her ballot in.

I know I sound negative but I do not mean to.  However, we have too much of this crap going on.  Can you believe we had people brag about how they “wrote in” the names of their cats for some offices?  Of course you can, right?  And they were RIGHT PROUD of themselves, too!

On a positive note I will readily declare that our supervisor of elections is a great lady who runs a tight ship.  The pollworkers she has are conscientious and honest.  At no point can I remember having seen anything resembling hanky panky or coerced voters or fraud.

It’s just that we are beset with moronic voters.

And not all of it is in Florida.  Read about this nonsense taking place in Pennsylvania.

I still say we are making the voting process too “IDIOT FRIENDLY” and this needs to stop or we’ll have stark, raving loonies in the booths before too long all demanding the “right” to vote.

In the good news department, Michael Moore fled like the cur that he is when there was nothing to “report” in Florida.  Fuckhead.  To bad someone didn’t make him a HUGE greasy spot on I-95.

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 11/03/2004 at 12:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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