and after voting today, I am damn sure it wasn’t for any of mine either.
I just came back from voting and have to ask; did the government have a special litmus test to ensure only the mentally challenged and/or functional illiterates would be the only ones manning my polling station?
Is it such an unreasonable a request to have polling stations manned by individuals without any obvious mental challenges and/or whose ability to read in English is not strained beyond 3 letter groupings?
And NO, for the record, I will not shorten my last name to make it more convenient for someone to search for it in an alphabetized voter’s list. I did suggest the woman search at the end of the list and work her way forward to the Y’s as in Young-sam. She looked me dead in the eye and asked why anyone would do such a dumb thing like that…. I tried to suggest speed, convenience, and ease but she maintained it was still the dumbest idea she heard all year and how I should think about shortening my name. At this point, I was reduced to cussing in multiply foreign languages under my breath.
But my horrendous ordeal wasn’t ended with her determining my last name was the very last name on the list for that polling station. Then she had to match out every single letter of my employee picture identification with every single letter on with the list. We, of course, hit a snag. My company pictured ID read “Kateland” and my voter registration read only “Kate” on the list as well as on voter registration card. Big Trouble. Much Angst. Multiple consultations ensued. Did I mention I was soaked from having been caught in the rain without an umbrella before I entered the polling station? Did I mention I looked a dead-ringer to the picture on my employee ID to absolutely no fracking avail?
It took 45 minutes from the time I first walked through the door until I was finally allowed to vote. It took me all of 20 seconds to actually vote. It would have been shorter but I pulled out the chair and sat down, filled out my cards, and then took the time to push the chair back in. The entire time I was there no one else came into the polling station…..and the government wonders why voter turn is low.
7 comments:
Does anybody know what that "Please State Your Name Out Loud" thing...TWICE...was all about??
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the guy takes the voter card, then asks for two pieces of id.
i hand him my drivers licence, which yes, has my picture on it... and he then asks me to recite my address.
apparently, i passed the test.
unfortunately the conservatives didn't.
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Wow. balbulican and neo almost on the same page...well on the same comment page...must check to see if my VRWC decoder ring is glowing.
I still want to know why they asked me to identify myself AGAIN when I returned from the voting booth. Were they:
- trying to weed out voters too dim to remember their own names for more than two minutes? (nah, can't be that...there wouldn't have been ANY Conservatives elected if that was the goal.) (Just kidding, guys)
- worried about shapeshifting aliens lurking under the voting table and sucking out voter brains? (Presumably the more left wing voters...richer feeding) (Just kidding again)
Seriously...what was that about?
B:
Um...it might have been because you shaved and changed in the voting booth?
Duh!
Seriously though, it's not always just about quality. There is ease of access to consider. We tend to feed at NDP conventions because the people there will pretty much just give it up without a fight, as long as you tell them its for a good cause - you know, single mothers or something, oppressed working families back on the home planet. You get the idea.
Zarkeeb of Karbunkl
Cosmic Glutton
Ah, democracy in action!
Isn't it wonderful?
" Um...it might have been because you shaved and changed in the voting booth?"
Well, yeah, but...oh, shit. I see. Okay. Never mind then.
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