Politics
Yesterday Mr. K and I took the kids to the polls for the Republican primary for our delegate (a state-level house of representative-like position). The guy we hoped would win did--with about 75% of the votes. All this means is that in the fall election, he'll get to appear as the Republican candidate on the ballot. I'll be voting for him then. He seems like an honest man, and he's in favor of lower taxes and less government spending. I love the sound of that.
The way the votes were done was interesting. We don't have party registration in this state so anyone could vote in the primary. Once they matched my ID up to the list of registered voters and crossed my name off in ink, they handed me a little slip of paper that had the names of both candidates on it. I could either circle the guy's name I wanted or cross out the guy's name that I didn't. Then I dropped the slip into a 5-gallon bucket with a slit cut in the top and the lid taped down. No voting machines necessary! Very inexpensive!
Anyway, I noticed that there were at least three sheriff-office police at the event. I had to laugh. I wonder if their presence was a requirement because it's almost impossible to envision the need for police at a Republican primary. No one is going to riot, fight, etc. On the other hand, there was so many people fighting for parking, it wouldn't surprise me if there had been some fender benders.
In this election, there was one polling place for the people in the county (me) and another place for the people in the city. About 3000 people voted, but I have no idea how many were eligible. Most people don't bother coming out for a primary and then many people could care less about who the Republicans put on the ballot. I think it is odd that our district combines a bit of the city with a bit of the county. I think that happened when we had some redistricting after the 2000 census.
When we arrived, the engineer I used to work with in my last job was just leaving. I spoke to him for a bit. He was surprised I knew he had left the company we used to work for. I told him I knew because when he left, they called me to see if I was interested in my old job. He says he's making more money with less responsibility now, so he's happy. I hadn't seen his son since he was five, and he's got to be about eleven or so now. It was hard to believe that was the same boy.
2 Comments:
I had to laugh about how the voting was done. That is exactly the way that we do it.... even for Federal elections.
Everyone goes to their local polling booth, you have your name crossed off a list and are given some slips of paper with the candidates names and you either cross one box (the party you want to vote for) or you number the candidates from 1 to 60ish :-) Then you fold it and place it in a big sealed cardboard box. The votes are then counted by hand.
I always wonder why we don't vote electronically.
For federal elections, we used to do punch cards. You might have heard about the stupid problem in our 2000 election in Florida for President when it took us months to figure out who was going to be the president. We learned that the little things you punch out of a punch card are called "chads." I guess they concluded a hanging chad (didn't come all the way off) counted as a vote. Anyway the whole thing was an embarrassing disaster and we are being forced to use electronic voting machines in the "real" elections.
I liked the punch cards because a real piece of paper exists afterward, and as you leave, it is "read" in a machine so the votes don't have to be tallied by hand (unless the election is close--Florida 2000). Also, just glancing at someone's punch card isn't going to give you much of a clue for whom they voted. You'd have to inspect it up close and know which candidate went with each number.
I don't like the electronic voting because I don't trust something that doesn't leave an actual bit of paper that can be checked later if necessary, I worry about viruses and hackers in the system, and I don't know what would happen if the power went out at a polling place.
The difficulty I see with your method is that each vote must be counted manually, and that must take quite a while. I guess your population might be quite smaller than ours, though. I also think it might be hard to read people's numbering. I can't even imagine how you sort through numbered votes and figure out who got how many votes.
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