Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Almost Disenfranchised

Today, The Misers set out to vote at their local polling place only to find the church empty and quiet as a mouse. Where was everybody? Where were the booths? It was only four o'clock, did they shut down the polls at three? What was going on? We didn't have a voting pamphlet on us as it got tossed out and/or lost by Bee weeks ago. But we've always voted at the Methodist church in the 20 plus years we've lived here, except for that one time when we voted in someone's living room, but what street was that on? How on earth would we ever find it if that was indeed where we were supposed to go? We decided to head down to Logan Street Elementary, because they had voting booths there, and surely that they would know where we were to go. I waited in the car with Bee and Glenn The Dog as Sparky ran inside to see what was what. He was gone for a long time. Two Led Zeppelin songs played on the classic rock station he had the radio set to (Bee loves classic rock) before he finally returned, and everybody knows how long Zep songs are. And guess what? He knew even less then he did before. Apparently nobody working the polls in there spoke English, except for one ancient Filipino lady, and she had no clue as to where we were to go to vote. We were not on the their list and they couldn't help us, so Sparky looked on their map and ascertained that we should go to Duane Elementary off of Allesandro Street to see if they knew were we should go. All of this just to vote in some mamby-pampy election. But The Misers feel that it's important to get out there and vote, so onward we went. We also were not on the sheets at Duane Elementary, but they said we could fill out provisional ballots. Great! The poll workers were very nice, we voted, and they even gave Bee an "I Voted" sticker. Why didn't they know about provisional voting at Logan Street? What sort of glue are they sniffing over there? Were they trying to disenfranchise us? And where on earth were we really suppose to vote? Were we just supposed to drive around side streets aimlessly, searching for someone's living room? We'll probably never know, but at least The Misers fulfilled their civic duty and got out there and rocked the vote!

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