I voted this morning in the primary, though as a voter listed as “unaffiliated,” I was handed just the nonpartisan ballot. I thought about returning to get a party ballot, but decided to go with what I had. The main reason was that the election officials were in a lengthy conversation with a tall, African-American gentleman at the time.
“I’m just checking the ‘no electioneering’ signs,” he said. I took that to mean he was an election official. This polling place has two entrances, only one of which had a “no campaigning” sign near the door. He was trying to determine which door most voters came through. It became obvious to me by his lack of familiarity that he “ain’t from around here.”
By now the talk had moved outside to the only “no campaigning” sign. I tried to slip by the group but one election official wheeled around right as I was walking behind her, smacking right into me.
I was a sitting duck. Here I was: a well-dressed, affluent, young white guy. Like dangling a steak before a hungry lion.
Out went his hand. “Vernon Robinson. I want to be your Congressman.”
“Hi Vernon. Nice to meet you,” I answered absent-mindedly, still heading to my car.
A beat or two later I remembered who he is: the self-described “black Jesse Helms,” a contradiction if I’ve ever heard one. His anti-gay, anti-immigrant campaign themes appeal to hotheads, a seemingly desperate attempt to get votes. Hell, anyone who would call themselves the “black Jesse Helms” would do anything to get elected. Now that thing I noticed earlier with his voice – that slightly slimy, used-car-salesman tone of some politicans – began to make sense.
As I drove off I actually kind of felt sorry that he’d made the long trip out from Winston-Salem (he doesn’t even live in the 13th congressional district in which he’s running – he has a habit of doing that) and all he had to talk to were the election officials.
Well, them, and this one well-dressed, affluent, young white guy who happens to blog.
As an unaffiliated voter, they asked me which ballot I wanted. I asked for the democratic one, specifically so I could vote against Mike Nifong. When I got my ballot, though, I was halfway to the voting cube when I looked down and realized they’d given me an unaffiliated ballot. So, I went back and asked for the democratic one. Apparently they had written the correct ballot designation (D) on my label but wrote the incorrect set of numbers at the top of the piece of paper you hand to get your ballot. No harm done, though.
One thing I noticed about the new ballots, was that they take at least 2-3 times longer to fill in the circle than it did to draw a line between two arrows. I also wonder just how effective using pens to fill in ovals will be. I spent time trying to make sure I got everything colored in, but my experience with that kind of machine readable scanned in paper has been that it’s very easy to have the machine mis-read the ovals. 🙁