In hindsight I definitely checked my precinct yesterday. It could have avoided my latest series of panic attack.
Anyway wanting to make this most important day feel special I had put on my leather jacket and headed to what had been my usual polling place for the last two years. I was very happy to see that where in the past I’d barely ever seen anymore then four voters at a time had what could pass as a crowd.
Now unfortunately my voter’s card is an old one that still has my last address on it. While a point of frustration, and something I’ve been trying to fix ever since i’ve moved to my new address, It has never been a problem. All I have to do is have my driver’s license and look up my precinct in the list. So you can imagine my surprise when I didn’t see my name on the list. The volunteer’s were nice enough, but in my state of agitation what they probably meant as being a soothing tone to me sounded damn patronizing. They asked if i wanted to fill out a provisional ballot but since I was pretty sure this was my fault, and since I was getting close to having a very public tantrum, I declined and left.
After I got home, I had a very frustrating hour surfing and making phone calls trying to figure out the solution to my mistake. After may busy signals, talking to several well meaning, overworked and clueless volunteers I finally found out my precinct number and that I had indeed gone to the wrong place.
So I set out again to vote. The correct place was at a community center that was even more crowded than the other place. After a short wait I got my turn to vote. The only open privacy booth was a sit down table where someone had swiped the chair. So the price of my civic duty is a slight kink in my back. But at least I now have it over with. And feeling good about it.
