When In The Course of Human Events

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So I went and exercised my civic duty this morning. The polling place was a little crowded -- I think that it was the pre-work (work? what's that?) rush -- and some of the people in the booths were taking far too long to make their selection. Adding to the mild confusion was the fact that New York City has redrawn voting districts this year, so if you were in Dictrict 22 last time, you might be in Districts 32, or 30, or 35 this time.

One odd thing is that the poll workers don't ask for any sort of ID -- you just show up, tell them your name, and they sign you in. I guess that it prevents any given name in the book from voting twice, but there's no guarantee that the person pulling the levers is actually the person that they say they are.

And why on earth do they only have one voting machine per district? I mean, I know that they're old machines (I'm sure that the ones we have today are the same ones that were used to elect Kennedy), but given that this is New York, with the highest population density in North America (OK, I just made that up, but it's still probably true), you'd think that they would have more than one machine per district, precisely because of the problems caused by the people I complain about in the next paragraph.

My other pet peeve about elections are people who take far too long in the booth. For me, it's simple. I go in, pull the lever, follow my father's advice, and then pull the lever again so I can leave. I mean, the voting booth is really not the time to make up your mind.

Anyway, my friend Ultrasparky has a few good reasons why voting is important.

4 Comments

we do things much simpler up here.
piece of paper and a pencil.
mind you there are far fewer of us.

so you're impatient...and you follow your father's adivce??? i rather like voting for whoever's name i like best ;)

IIRC, the Upper West Side is the most densely populated neighborhood in the US.

It's more of a maxim or a guideline rather than advice, really...

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