Casting My Vote for Change

Monday, November 15, 2004

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Casting My Vote for Change

By J’AMY PACHECO

I may not be the most politically savvy voter in my precinct, but I take my voting rights seriously — so much so that my husband and I vote together after work, and take our eight-year-old daughter with us to observe the right that will be hers in just one short decade.

Normally, we zip into our local fire station, cast our ballots, put our “I voted” stickers on our daughter’s shirt and shift the conversation from politics to dinner.

I never really understood the complaints of Florida voters in that “other” election; the one in which voters claimed — among other things – that obstacles were put in the way to discourage them from voting. I thought they were a bunch of whiners.

Today, I consider them soul mates. Allow me to explain.

First, I received a sample ballot that looked SO much like a sample it took me 15 minutes to figure out the enormous sheets stapled sideways into my booklet were my actual sample ballot. They almost got tossed before the discovery was made.

Once I figured that out, I turned to the booklet for explanation of the measures. Unfortunately, other than a few candidate statements and one measure argument and rebuttal, the booklet contained no information about the proposals for which I was to cast my vote.

Thank Heaven for Al Gore’s having invented the Internet — it was the only place a perplexed and unprepared voter could turn to read the actual proposals, as well as the arguments for and against. So that’s where I went.

My ballot contained detailed instructions on how I was to vote — I was to carefully draw a single line connecting two parts of an arrow to indicate each choice. I practiced over and over for Election Day.

My husband works out of town, so by the time we got to our new polling place — a local elementary school — it was 7:10 p.m. It was also quite cold, so we were dismayed to see a group of people lined up outside the auditorium doors. Grabbing coats and a half-read book for our voter-in-training, we joined them.

When we reached the doorway about 15 minutes into our wait, we discovered the line extended across the auditorium into another room. But it didn’t just stretch across the auditorium, it snaked from side to side in Disneyland style lines contained within streams of tape strung between metal folding chairs.

As the clock hands ticked toward the poll’s closing time, I began to worry that I wouldn’t get my chance to vote. But a poll worker assured the grumbling mob in the auditorium that we’d get to vote as long as we were in line at 8 p.m.

So it was with great reluctance that I left the line shortly before 8 to use the restroom. I never conducted business so quickly.

By 8:45, my daughter finished her 200-plus page book. We weren’t even halfway across the room. As I listened to cell phone-toting neighbors reporting election results, I began to wonder if my vote really mattered. I considered leaving.

My husband persuaded me to stay, and we waited until well after 9 p.m. When we approached the check-in table, we discovered what had apparently caused the long wait: eight poll workers served one voter at a time. From our vantage point, we could see that nearly every voting booth stood empty while three women watched one of their colleagues flip through a book looking for the name of a solitary voter.

As best I could figure, one poll worker’s job was to point at an empty voting booth once the table people were done. Another worker just watched; no pointing. Yet another sat alone at a table with a stack of papers and never moved; I’m not quite sure what her job was.

Once I reached a booth, I discovered my hard-practiced arrow drawing was for naught; I was voting electronically. And while there were few instructions and I’d never voted in this manner before, I managed to finish the task in less than two minutes — after a two-and-a-half hour wait.

The next day, I received a press release hailing my county’s “smooth, problem free election.” There were, the release read, “no substantive issues reported regarding the election” in my county.

I have a news flash: I was frustrated with the whole process, from my sample ballot to the poorly organized polling place. I nearly gave up my rights for this year.

There surely must be a better way. And if somebody can figure out what that is — well, they’re sure to get my vote.

Eventually.