Random Thoughts: Voting

I voted today. It took an hour and forty (1:40) minutes to get through the line for those of us unfortunate enough to have a last name starting with the letters A-I. For those with names starting with J-R, the wait was about 20 minutes. If you were one of the lucky few in the S-Z category, you walked right in to the front of the line and waited about 5 minutes for a free booth. I think someone needs to rebalance the names in each book.

In addition to the long wait, I found myself figuratively assulted by campaigners blocking the walk-way to the entrance to the polling place. I find it annoying that they are even present, but to present an effective blockade is just rediculous. OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little when I call it a blockade. At the very least, I had to walk on the grass. If it had been raining, I would have gotten my shoes wet and dirty!

My final and most significant annoyance was the presence of the completely uninformed electorate. I'm not talking about the fact that people don't know their prospective council members. I'm talking about the big game. A woman behind us in line grabbed a sample ballot while waiting. As she looked at it, she exclaimed, "Who are all these people running for president?!? I thought there were only two people running!" Another worman, obviously missing the words in each section stating as much said, "How many of these people do I vote for?"

Seriously, is it that hard to be just a little bit informed? Why bother voting if you don't care about the input or the output? If you don't know who the incumbents are and you don't know who the challengers are and you don't even know how many people you vote for, shouldn't you just stay home? On a plus note, I was entertained by all the dumbasses who over-voted their questions and then just told the marshal to accept it and not count that question. They intend to vote twice, but end up not voting at all. Good effort!