I was the Number One voter in my precinct. Of course I don’t mean that I am Super Voter or whatever. Actually my voting history has some holes in it. But I took my skunk walk this morning and arrived at my polling place *exactly* when it opened. My phone proclaimed the time just as a poll worker opened up the door to the school and said, “The polls are open!”

I have some of the weirdest voting experiences. You would think that being the first voter to arrive, everything would run smoothly. And it started out that way. First off, people were surprised that *I* was number one. “Where is that guy who always arrives five minutes early?” asked one worker. Another replied, “Maybe he’s dead.” If he is dead, I guess maybe I am now the First Voter, uh, until I die… And then a new generation of poll workers will be wondering where the baggy old kayak woman who always arrives early is. Maybe she died…

Anyway. I was first and the two volunteers who were charged with finding my name and checking it off could *not* remember what they were supposed to do. Opening night jitters or something. Meanwhile… I was standing there… I honestly think it took about five minutes for them to sort it out. “Where do I write the ballot number?” “Where do I put this little sticker?” “Where does her ballot application go?” (If I am number one even one more time, I will be able to tell *them* what to do… ;-)) Even though I knew everything would be all right, I was a little nervous by the end of that.

But what could possibly go wrong? There was only one measly bond issue on the ballot. I couldn’t possibly over-vote, like I supposedly did in a previous election and was humiliated to hear the poll worker announce it to the room. That didn’t happen today. Today, when I finally got my ballot, I headed straight over to the ballot eating musheen. Hmmm, did I fergit a step? The poll worker caught it. “You haven’t VOTED yet.” Er, duh… Earth to KW… I walked over to one of the voting carrels (tail between legs) and VOTED, i.e., filled in one little oval. The ballot-eating musheen ate my ballot without complaint. Because it was the FIRST ballot, I could even hear it softly ker-plunking down to the bottom of the musheen.

I took my “I voted” sticker and walked out and that’s another election done and we’ll see how it turns out. I think there will be a very light turnout today. When we are voting for a new president, I have to get to my polling station at like 5 AM to be the number one voter. That seems topsy-turvy to me. I think that these local elections are extremely important. I think more people need to start paying more attention to the election process at the local level. Who is running for city council or county commissioner or school board or whatever. I know how hard it is to keep up with all of this but often the decisions made at these levels have a more immediate effect on our lives and our pocketbooks than state or national decisions.

If there is an election wherever you are, please vote if you can. There are 22 minutes left to vote here on The Planet Ann Arbor.

Love y’all,
-KW

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2012 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.