Voting as Process, not Product

Great: polling places are closing across the eastern US and the "instant results" are coming in. Talk about incentive for the far western state voters to rush to the polls! I thought there was going to be withholding of the results of eastern states until all the western states closed the polls.

Guess not. So, I either take the publicized elections results and figure my vote doesn't count, or I rush to the polls before they close so my one vote makes a difference? Somehow, I don't think either scenario is going to happen, but no one thought Eli Manning could get out of the mosh pit Sunday and complete the pass he wanted to throw to a receiver who caught it with his helmet.

I completed my absentee ballot and sent it to the county for processing the day after I received it in January. Sure, it fell apart when I opened it, but I figured that was to facilitate the counting process. Little did I know that the ballot was defective because that notice wasn’t sent out until 2 weeks after I had returned my ballot. Anyone who had not completed the ballot had to contact the registrar of voters and request a replacement ballot, and that's as likely to happen as people lining up and demanding to serve jury duty.

I also did not figure out to merely connect the two halves of the line indicating my choice with one single stroke of my black ink pen: to be sure it was easy to read, I colored in the line! Now the public is told that the ballots were going to be counted by machines that only read one firm line and only if that single line is in black ink! However, since so many people did as I did, the ballots are going to have to be hand counted or thrown out, and I think that's still illegal.

None of this was made clear in the media until today because the county is using paper ballots this year, rather than the machines, confusing the hell out of senior citizens who have finally figured out voting by machine. Someone decided that the voting machines can be compromised, as was alleged about a decade ago, so we’re back to paper ballots that are machine-scored for those voters who followed directions, and hand scored for any of us who filled in the line, rather than simply connecting it.

I can't wait to see the results of this election fiasco!

PS: It's just after 9 pm and the CA election has already been called! Wow, the paper ballots must be more efficient than I thought as the polls closed a mere hour ago. And how 'bout all those absentee ballots? They've all been scored, too?

Must be; the pundits are predicting who's going to drop out of the race, as well as how many "committed" delegates now belong to each candidate. Isn't it exciting?