Cast Ballot
Well, I'm done. This was my first time voting at an actual polling place. In Oregon, where we moved from just over a year ago, there are only mail-in ballots. But here in Colorado, I got to do the whole waiting in line thing. It took just over an hour, and most of the people in line seemed to be college students from University of Denver, across the street. There was lots of talking in line and sharing of information and sample ballots. Most people were pretty openly voting for Kerry-Edwards, though I guess that isn't very surprizing for a bunch of private university students.
Anyway, they checked my ID, gave me the little blue card with my tally number (327) and sent me into the booth. I pushed all of the appropriate buttons and lit up all of the appropriate arrows. Then I hit the "Cast Ballot" button and sent my vote into cyber-who-knows-where. The old man who greeted me outside the booth gave me not one, but two "I Voted" stickers. I put one on my shrit and one on my coat, but if my coat is open, both are visible, so I'm not sure if that looks bad like I might have voted twice. I didn't -- promise.
Only one decision was hard to make. In Colorado we have Amendment 36 that would split the electoral vote of our state in proportion to the popular vote. I'm not a big fan of the electoral college, so maybe I should vote for it. On the other hand, it might serve to make Colorado politically impotent, so maybe no. But it might spur action at the federal level if more states start chucking the electoral college system. And what about the ramifications for this election? Which way will Colorado go? We are a battleground state, but it's looking a little better for Bush. If Bush carries the state the ammendment passes, then Kerry gets 4 electoral votes that he wouldn't have gotten before. If Kerry carries and it passes, then he loses 4. Anyway, I went back and forth on this, but I ended up voting for it, hoping that it would spur some debate at the national level about the electoral college.
Happy voting, everyone.
Anyway, they checked my ID, gave me the little blue card with my tally number (327) and sent me into the booth. I pushed all of the appropriate buttons and lit up all of the appropriate arrows. Then I hit the "Cast Ballot" button and sent my vote into cyber-who-knows-where. The old man who greeted me outside the booth gave me not one, but two "I Voted" stickers. I put one on my shrit and one on my coat, but if my coat is open, both are visible, so I'm not sure if that looks bad like I might have voted twice. I didn't -- promise.
Only one decision was hard to make. In Colorado we have Amendment 36 that would split the electoral vote of our state in proportion to the popular vote. I'm not a big fan of the electoral college, so maybe I should vote for it. On the other hand, it might serve to make Colorado politically impotent, so maybe no. But it might spur action at the federal level if more states start chucking the electoral college system. And what about the ramifications for this election? Which way will Colorado go? We are a battleground state, but it's looking a little better for Bush. If Bush carries the state the ammendment passes, then Kerry gets 4 electoral votes that he wouldn't have gotten before. If Kerry carries and it passes, then he loses 4. Anyway, I went back and forth on this, but I ended up voting for it, hoping that it would spur some debate at the national level about the electoral college.
Happy voting, everyone.
posted by david at 1:57 PM
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