If you are a US person, and live in one of the states which are holding primary elections today – please go and vote. Or mail in your ballot, which ever applies.
California is an automatic mail ballot state. This is becoming more common, but is still not universal, obviously since it makes voting much easier for a large number of people.
George, good citizen that he is, promptly filled out his ballot, signed, sealed, and autographed the envelope. Me? I put mine in a safe place. Since I hadn’t rediscovered that “safe place” by this morning, I actually headed to my local polling station to vote in person.
Thinking back, this is the first time that I have voted in person since about 1980. We moved to Germany in 1981, registered in Texas on our way and have been voting by absentee ballots since. Shifting to Florida for residency at some point (something about being military overseas and not feeling like paying state income tax when being out of country). California became the default when we relocated here at the end of 2015.
Polling places have changed a lot. The registration people have tablets with which to verify name, address, status, and party preference. Tap, next screen, tap, next screen, etc. Sign with a finger,
“Do I want to use the computer or paper ballot?”
Computer, thank you very much.
Turning me over to the next poll worker, he logged me into the computer with the just issued ID code and turned me loose. Less than five minutes later, (easy, peasy) I was done. Surprised, I followed the directions and printed my completed ballot, then dropped it in the turquoise ballot box. I noted that it had a neatly printed list of what I had voted for, and a QR code as well..
And now we are back home.
Today also marks Noah’s 33rd birthday. He has elected to have a quiet day without any fuss or bother. I handed him his pile of presents which included –
which he recognized immediately as the “Death of Rats” from Terry Prachett’s Discworld.
