Tuesday, November 04, 2008
For my friend Gregory, who told me point blank: “You shouldn't vote.”
Myself, I'm going to resist the tempation to even peek at the results until the 4th, when the Electoral Collage will rise from its hole, and if it sees its shadow, then six more weeks of vote counting and law suites.
I voted today and the experience wasn't the five hour ordeal I've been led to believe it was. Nope, once it was clear that I lived in the district (oops) the actual voting process was rather quick. In fact, there were more people there to monitor the voters than there were voters.
And no touch screens or butterfly ballets this year—just a simple paper ballet you fed through a machine when finished. The confetti coming out the other end was a nice touch, I thought.
I also did the right thing and voted for Cynthia McKinney, because, you know, she's going to win.
I wonder what the Founding Fathers would have thought of our instant results elections?
It's hard to resist the siren call of election results because all of us have a vested interest in our candidate getting elected and hopefully the mass of voter fraud that other candidate engages in will be caught and stopped.
But I think instant results in near real time are bad overall—it must totally suck to live in Alaska and have the election all but called even before the polling stations are closed. And if you don't care for Alaska because of that candidate, then what about Hawaii, the birthplace of that other candidate (you know, The One)? It must be tough for citizens of both states to feel like they contributed to a national election.
I'm actually surprised that there isn't a law preventing poll results to be released until all polls across the country are closed (for a national election—obviously for more local matters, results can be issued as soon as the relevant polls are closed). I would think at the very least this would give all parties a bit more leeway to engage in a bit of election chicannery (for those that require a more cynical viewpoint of things).
