So Young Now...

THERE'S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY
I did it, I took care of my civic privilege and responsibility. I voted today---cast my ballot for one of the contenders in the presidential race. I am wholly disheartened by the entire electoral process on a number of levels, but today I need to rant a little about the process on the local level. I will NOT mention the length of the election---why does it take a year or more to conduct a campaign---the time and money spent on a campaign can be put toward so many different and worthy causes, or can be put into the economic difficulties that are currently being experienced by much of the entire world! The US is looking inward to the elections, the rest of the world is focused on important issues of the day!

Furthermore, I won't mention the muckraking commercials, infiltrating my home and driving me crazy! Focus on your own positives, not your opponent's negatives! And please don't create issues out of non-issues or try to convince me that some minor wrong-doing by a remote relative should reflect negatively on a candidate who had no knowledge about it, or control over it, in the first place. Do some of the small things really matter in the big picture? The reification of abstractions or distractions creates poor politics in my mind!

And I am not going to mention the phone calls to my home, 10-12 times per day, from random strangers (or worse, recordings!), trying to sway my vote one way or the other. Whether I have made up my mind already (in which case the phone call of a random stranger purporting to be a representative of a candidate will not change my mind) or not, I don't want to hear from you! If I have questions about a candidate, I'll figure out the best person to ask, and I will make the phone call! I guarantee you that someone calling my home during meal times, nap times, or ANY time, will not be favorably received, and it will likely send me running to your opponent! Except if he is doing the same thing. Which, of course, he is.

And, being the eternal pessimist that I am, while I realize that our presidential candidates have put forth very different ideas, backed very different issues, and made very different campaign promises, I have to question how much of it is accomplished anyway! I want to know how much my life will change in the next 4 years! Less discussions, less meetings, more action!

Now having mentioned all of the things I was NOT going to mention, I have to comment on what I had intended to post about: my one hour and 45 minute wait to cast my ballot. In the rain, for much of the time. Why did it take so long? I did not know until I actually got into the polling place, which was rampant with inefficiency, run without any sense of urgency and replete with the mentality of people who saw themselves in a position of power and prestige, catering to the masses. Perhaps I am being unfair to some---I don't ever like to make sweeping generalizations, I realize everyone is an individual. What I saw when I got inside the building was this: very very long lines and slow movement to check people in---which should take SECONDS per person---with no sense of urgency! And God forbid the "checkers-in" of the M-Z people could take a peek and check someone in at the A-L book, to promote a sense of fairness and speed. The people with last names starting with M-Z were called up to cut the lines so they could be checked in by the people holding the M-Z book. An M-Z person in front of me cut off about 45 minutes of her wait (well, my wait) time by virtue of having an "R" name. The people who were very far behind me in line were finished 20-30 minutes before me! (And did they really need 3 people to look at each book? Wouldn't one suffice? One would assume that if you are doing this job, you are at least literate and capable of finding a name in an alphabetical listing, and don't need to confirm the name with 2 other people sitting there looking at the same thing! Maybe they could use those two extra bodies for other things...)

Moreover, there were approximately 8 voting cubicles, only 3 of which were being used as I stood and looked around! There was no lack of voters! Everyone else was in line waiting to get checked in by the invaluable powers-that-be in the township! Move them through people! And although I don't know about the many different voting methods and machines, (and why ARE they different in every polling place across the US? Shouldn't there be a uniform method to increase efficiency?) I felt like we were using a very antediluvian method of voting. Excuse my ignorance, but is this the wave of the future in our 21st century? We were filling out circles with a pen on a sheet of paper, much like taking a high school standardized test, then putting them into a machine that looked like a photocopy machine---I am told that this is an optical scanner. Whatever that is, I don't know, but I DO know that once your circles were filled in you have to go wait in another line to put your paper in the scanner and then wait until you are given the OK by another "worker" (ha) or "official" before you can leave. Why were there lines there as well, especially when only THREE of the eight cubicles were in use as I stood there!? I don't have any idea whether the machine resets itself after a period of time, but when I was there, leaving the polls at 3pm, the machine registered 714 voting papers. IN ALL THIS TIME SINCE THE POLLS OPENED AT 7AM, IT HAS ONLY REGISTERED 714 VOTERS? There are two machines, so assuming they are both registering about the same, there have only been 1400 people through there in 8 hours? The township population at the 2000 census was about 2800, and we all know how much it has grown since that time with all of the new developments, and apartments! So, they can't get everyone out of there even by 11pm (knowing that the polls close at 8) at the rate they are going! Is this the best they can do?? With the Chester County population growing in leaps and bounds, we need to do better!

I was tempted to get out of line and go home a few times during my wait, but I did not, ONLY because of the historical importance of this election. But for me, when it is not a presidential election, my experience today was a complete deterrent. I don't know whether I will be voting in local elections in the next few years, despite the fact that the people who we are voting into office are the first people in the chain-of-command who need to hear from anyone who has a complaint! They will hear from me, but likely not in the ballot booths (cubicles!) anytime in the near future! Having no better ideas to improve the process at the moment, I will sign off and wait for my lashings!