Early Voting Story

The other day I said somewhere that we didn't have early voting in California. Oops. Since we just got back from voting early, I guess I was wrong. Here's how it went in one little slice of small town life.

Normally, the polls are set up in the public meeting room at the Public Utility District (PUD. Heh.) building, aka the town water & power dept. There are three or four poll workers, half a dozen cardboard voting booths with trash bag privacy curtains, and lately, one, count 'em one electronic voting machine.

The early voting took place instead at the town offices, which is exactly downstairs from the bank Mrs. G just retired from. Usually, we sign next to our names on the official list of voters. Today we filled out cards for later cross reference.

There were about four or five people ahead of us. The chairs in the regular town waiting area are very comfortable. We were to have about an hour's wait according to the town clerk. She was very pleasant and gracious and I was a little surprised she didn't suggest we wait in the bar.

Mrs. G was a little worried - with nothing to do for an hour, she just knew I was going to get in some kinda trouble. I was chatting with a young gent who mentioned something about smoke 'n mirrors in relation to town business. I feigned horror and said "Shhh! Don't say 'smoke 'n mirrors!'" and pointed to the 8½ x 11 "no electioneering within 100 feet of polls" sign on the counter.

Town business was going on all around us while we waited. UPS and some other delivery outfit came and went. A coupla PUD folks came to get keys and other stuff to get tomorrow's polling place set up. A gent came in to get the key to the auxiliary generator room in the building. I had this fantasy of sneakin' in there, jammin' the throttle open with a stick, and watching all the light bulbs in the joint blow out. Heh. We visited with our friend and neighbor Keri. She's the local Minister of Parking Enforcement, aka the meter maid for our town's one block of metered parking.

I only got Mrs. G to wince once. This takes a little setup.

We have a proposition on the ballot that if passed will mandate conditions of better quality of life and sanitation for farm animals. Seems like a no-brainer, but the huge chicken farmer lobby has been running ads against it, saying in effect that if we don't let them abuse the chickens we'll have to import chickens and eggs from Mexico and we'll all die from salmonella. If you saw the conditions in some of those places, you'd think you were being given the choice to die from either Mexican salmonella or good ol' American salmonella.

So I turns ta Mrs. G, and in my drill field whisper asked her, "Honey, I forget - am I supposed to vote for the Mexican or the American salmonella?" She gave me The Look and a coupla folks laughed.

I didn't even come close to gettin' thrown outta the joint. I think the town folks and voters alike were grateful for my attempts at humor. I hope so. It was awfully boring.

One person at a time was led around behind the counter and deep into the office area by town employee Shauna, whom we've known since she was ten years old. When they finished, after maybe five minutes, Shauna brought them back out and took the next one in. Mrs. G went before me. At this point, Shauna had to step out for a minute, so she just had Mrs. G come get me. The town clerk lady followed us, no doubt to make sure I didn't cause any mischief in the ten feet of hallway that I was out of her sight. I don't blame her.

Mrs. G led me straight into Shauna's office. There was one, count 'em one electronic voting machine there, the sum total of our town's early voting efforts. I think I used it in June's primary. Cool gadget. I kept screwing up, and voted for Obama about three or four times. Actually, I thought that was pretty neat. At the end came a printed summary for my approval. Obama's name was only on it once. Drat.

Total time, just about an hour. No doughnuts, ice cream, or sex toys, just the satisfaction that we might have helped prevent another criminal regime.

Also, today is me 'n Mrs. G's 35th wedding anniversary. We're gonna paint the town red at Zano's, probably with marinara sauce. We're going for the early bird special an' I got a coupon! Whee!

Update:

Charlie Brown is running for Congress from CA-04 against Tom McCarpetbagger. The campaign has been ugly from the Repug side, big surprise. Mrs. G just told me some moron left a goat's head on his porch. Keep it classy, you Repug bastards.