Partner and I bounded out of bed like two little bunnies yesterday morning and scampered right down to the local Salvation Army to vote. The place was already surrounded by a mangy-looking crowd of campaign supporters, including one local Independent candidate wearing a ten-dollar suit and a two-bit smile, when we got there. We paid them no mind.
I like voting at the Salvation Army. They had the voting area set up in the toys/stuffed animals section, so I was able to do some window-shopping for Christmas at the same time. The election staff at their little card tables were the usual super-polite older people with shaky voices and shaky hands, asking me to spell my name over and over again. (I call them “older,” but I’m right around that age myself, and my hands shake just as badly as theirs, especially that early in the morning.)
The Rhode Island voting system is like a first-grade art project. They hand you a big sheet of construction paper and a nice fat black marker and send you over to a cheap blue plastic Playskool desk to color in your choices. Then you take your finished ballot / work of art over to the Votomatic 2000, which sucks it in like a reverse ATM and presumably shreds it into a million pieces.
There were lots of independents on the ballot hereabouts this year; I even voted for a couple of them. Seriously, how can you not vote for someone who represents the Cool Moose Party? There was also one two-person race, in which Incumbent Ick was running against Challenger Yuck. I couldn’t stand the idea of voting for either one, so I marked the write-in column and wrote in NO ONE! It probably invalidated my whole ballot, but it was fun for a few seconds.
When we got home, we both registered on the I VOTED! Facebook group. Partner added the following comment:
- I voted and voted and voted...now everything will be fixed and cows will poop rainbows...
I know exactly how he feels. For one brief – very brief – moment, you have the feeling that your vote will actually accomplish something. Things will actually change for the better. November 3 will be a better day than November 2. And cows will poop rainbows.
It probably won’t happen. But it doesn’t stop me from hoping. Poop away, you cows!
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