PSA from CrabAppleLane

I went this afternoon at 4:45. There was no one in line in front of me. My friend from work went at 6 am and stood in line for 45 minutes. The worst I had to deal with was the rain and puddles!

We just got back. There was absolutely no line. We went in, showed our ID, voted, and were on our way.

Aminah and I went at 7am to the church down the street. We had to wait about a half hour. Aminah got to vote in the kids vote for extra credit for her Civics class.

Christina and I went at 9 or so. There were 5 or 6 people in front of us and the line moved well. I was in and out in a minute. Christina had to cast a "provisional" vote and oh my, was that a mess. I've never heard of this particular vote before; I wonder if it is the first time these have been possible. Anyway, her name wasn't in the book and it wasn't in the supplemental list and she had never received her voter's registration card. She was given a paper ballot to complete -- with a commissioner hovering over her -- and when she handed it to the old lady, folded, the old lady unfolded it and set it flat on top of the others who had filled out a ballot before her. She's been composing her letter ever since, but good luck to her. On the news last night, they said the various officials in charge of voting have been swamped with complaints. And aren't we ALL glad it's over and done? To never have to watch those awful commercials ever again? I think they need to take a cue from France and give them four weeks to say their say. I think it could be done and I also think that people would be willing to listen and pay attention if they knew it would be finished in such a short time.

I love the kids vote, Janice. What a great idea.

When I left for work there was a LONG line at my polling place and the polls hadn't even openned yet! When I went six hours later I was in and out in no time!

I'm still composing my letter in my head! I am still outraged that not only was my vote not confidential, it was probably never counted. I registered on time and because of the Registrar's backlog, I didn't get to vote in the proper way. How irritating.

I think you need to write a letter to the editor on something like that if the one you are composing now goes nowhere.

My school did a school-wide election. We had a make-shift voting booth and paper ballots. My kindergarten students got to vote and they were so funny doing it. One of them exclaimed, "Where's George W. Bush? I need to vote for him." Incidentally, Bush won in our school election as well.

Bob McKeithen (secretary of state for LA) was on the news last night saying that he wants to testify in front of Congress to get rid of provisional voting because he said it was a mess. We'll see. So much for Kerry's "every vote will be counted" promise.