I early voted today, and it sucked big-time
October 29, 2008 at 4:00 pm by Wayne GarciaI couldn’t hold out until Election Day to cast my ballot, as much as I wanted to, but the thought of trying to juggle my journalistic duties with my constitutional responsibility to vote got to be a bit overwhelming. So, I thought, I would pop down the street to the West Tampa Library and vote early.
I’ll jump to the conclusion: this paper ballot stuff sucks and I long for the days of the touch-screen machine.
I lit out of the office at about 11:30 a.m. to vote, and after circling the block once found a parking spot. The entire street on the north side of the library was full, as was the parking lot across the street, in back of the post office. I got in line with what looked like about 60-70 people ahead of me, as Obama volunteers handed out literature and a poll watcher came by with bottles of water. The poll watcher made a crack about not having any Scotch to go with the water, and I damned near left the line to go get one. Would have taken the edge off the cold and the wait ahead.
They let people inside in groups of 15, and each group took about 15-20 minutes to cycle through, so I spent about 45 minutes in line outside and another 15 or so inside until I got to the woman manning the voting computer. “Your picture ID, please,” she said. I had to repeat to her my current address, then read a placard that threatened me with jail if I was bullshitting her about anything, then sign my name on an electronic keypad instead of the old paper record. What a pain in the ass. There was an elderly lady next to me who, I swear, like tried to sign the electronic keypad 30 or 40 times without it registering. She apparently couldn’t get it right or muster enough strength to have the pen make an impression. What a nightmare.
After I did all that song and dance, the poll worker hit a button and my paper ballot started spitting out of the printer. This printing process took about 30 seconds or so, as opposed to the digital cards that touch-screens used to have, which took almost no time to program. I then was handed my two paper ballots inside of a “privacy folder” and was directed to a voting booth. The black felt-tip marker at the booth worked, just barely, and I started marking the two pages.
Now, here is where I screwed up.
Damned-near lulled asleep by the long wait, I marked the “yes” and “no” bubbles in one judicial retention race. This is technically called an overvote. I kept marking the ballot and figured, “what the hell, I don’t care about that race anyway and can live with the fact that my vote won’t count in that one race.”
Wrong.
After filling in both pages of the ballot, I walked over to the machine where you feed your ballot in and it is verified. Most ballots go through and, after a screen says your ballot has been accepted it is lodged in the guts of the scan reader.
Not mine. It gets spit back out. “Overvote,” the screen reads.
Shit.
I tell a poll worker, who directs me to another table where misfits, goofballs, folks without proper voter registration and Sidney, Mohammet, Jugdish and Clayton are seated. My privacy folder was surrendered to the poll worker, who filled out a form on a huuuuuuge gray envelope, with my name and the description “Dumbass” next to it (OK, I made that last part up) and then I had to sign my name attesting to my own stupidity and then she carefully, so as not to see how I voted, wrote some of kind words on each of my paper ballots and put them into the spoiled ballots gray huge envelope and then wrote on a tiny slip of paper the numbers 1&2 and told me to get back in line for another ballot.
Back in line. Behind four others. At this point I considered just throwing in the towel and writing off my vote. But I hung in there. Another 7 minutes goes by and I was back at the same poll worker, a nice person, who gave me my first ballots. “I screwed up and have to do it again,” I said with all of the shame of a third-grader who didn’t do his finger-painting right the first time.
After a less-intensive grilling I got my two new ballots and vow to fill in only those races that really matter to me; sorry, judges who want to be retained. By this time, I had lost my patience. I did get it right the second time and fed the ballots into the eating machine and then raced for the door, picking up my prized “I Voted” sticker. I vowed never to cast another ballot in the state of Florida.
Total elapsed time: 1:15.
The thrill of voting in another flawed Florida election: Priceless
