Tuesday was primary day in Maryland and for the first time in my voting life I was able to cast my ballot in person rather then by absentee ballot. I considered not voting, as its only the primary and not the general, but when I noticed that my polling place was only two blocks away from my house I shamed myself into going and just for jollies brought Amber along for some much needed exercise.
The whole voting process was, for me at least, pretty fast and easy. For many others this wasn't the case. The WaPo reported that there were delays and malfunctions all over Montgomery County; the deadline for voting was pushed back an hour but things were still screwing up all over. My visit to the polling station did include the local volunteers berating a Diebold worker about problems with the voting machines. Yes the same Diebold that screwed things up in 2004 generally and in Ohio specifically. Its some what shocking that, with all of our technology, we are still unable to nail down the fundamentals of one of the core parts of a democracy: voting. There should be no delays, no errors, no meltdowns, etc.. It's 2006 people and while we might not have personal jet packs, we should have fast, easy and reliable voting machines.
I won't say who I voted for but I am a registered Democrat and so I, obviously, voted in the Democratic primaries. In college I took a class called "Voting and Elections" and one of the reoccurring themes through out the semester was how, well, stupid, most voters are. People go to the polls having little to no knowledge of the issues or where the candidates stand on said issues. Being privileged kids (for the most part) at a private liberal arts college, our class would often mock the ignorant masses.
That's why today was a bit of a reality check for me: I didn't no jack shit about an awful lot of the people on the ballot. I pride myself on knowing politics in and out, I'll got toe to toe with anyone on politics and current events, and more then likely, kick their ass. But for the life of me I have no idea why Rick Dabbs or Caryn Hines or Loretta E. Knight should be the Democratic candidate for the position of Clerk of the Circuit Court. Not only do I know not a thing about the candidates, I'm not even really sure where one is supposed to go to find such information. As I was going in to vote there was a cheap little newsletterish thing that contained little blurbs from the candidates but that was mostly useless fluff. I was amazed and slightly shamed about how little I knew about the people i was supposed to be casting votes for.
To make up for my ignorance I decided to not vote for anyone or any race I knew nothing about. That significantly narrowed down the elections to make a decision in (goodbye Democratic Central Committee At Large race, hello Democratic U.S. Senate race) and eliminated the temptation to pick people based on their names. That's another thing: This might be stating the obvious but those campaign signs really work. Several times i looked at a race, not knowing anything about it or the issues involved but I would see one name I recognized from a sign and feel a strong urge to vote for that person. Name recognition really is a powerful force and now I have a little more respect for the political signage that blankets every church and library lawn, not to mention any available space, every time an election rolls around.
That's my voting story. I had so much fun doing it yesterday I thought about going back and trying to vote again, Chicago-style. I believe the Chicago motto was "Vote early, vote often!" Sounds good to me.