Early Voting: You're Doing It Wrong

I went to vote early in the Texas primary today. In preparation I downloaded the League of Women Voters guide and the HBA Judicial Qualification Poll results (low voter turnout on that, by the way) and highlighted my preferred candidates.

First I tried the Neartown early voting site, across from the retail supercenter on Gray. There were gatorboard signs everywhere. There were TV news vans. There were pamphlet- and sign-toting boosters for most of the major candidates and a handful of school board hopefuls. They swarmed me. I felt like I was walking through the Silk Market in Beijing. Many of them held their signs face down as they approached then flashed them up at me as our paths crossed and they shouted their candidate's name. "Paul Day for Sheriff!" "Vote for Barack!" "Hey, miss, psst... over here... want a judge who's a REAL democrat?" "County DA for the pretty lady?"

I clutched my briefcase to my side as though I expected them to pick my pocket and began to walk more briskly. Then I noticed a short, round, 40-something lady with flat straight hair (flatter and straighter than mine, which is almost impossible) moving slowly toward me, her eyes cast downward, her shoulders drooped and her expression dour as she slouched along the sidewalk. Her sign hung down low with her low-hanging hands and low-hanging countenance until she got right up next to me. Then she flipped up her sign and pleaded in a Droopy Dog voice, "Pleeeeeease, ma'am. Please, you've just got to vote for Hillary. Please." I almost gave her a dollar until I realized she wasn't asking me to help feed her starving children.

The line at the Neartown voting place was taking over an hour to get through. I turned right back around and girded myself to speed back through the pack of candidate carnies and head downtown. After a trip to the car wash and a FREEto pie (different story) I made my way to the downtown early voting station. The line was longer than I'd hoped, but I remembered that the last time I voted early downtown and had basically had the building to myself was on a Saturday.

I entertained myself with my blackberry while I stood in line and read the various plaques on the lobby walls. Did you know we recently had a county commissioner named Squatty?

When I finally arrived in the room where the mysterious voting computers reside, I was greeted by a clean cut and cordial 20-year-old who stopped me at the threshold to wait while a spot at one of the three registrars' desks opened up. "How are you doing?" "Fine, thanks." "Are you registered to vote in Harris County?" "Yes." "You having a good day so far?" "Sure am." Awkward silence followed until a registrar was available. He had this exact same conversation with the dozen or so people I overhead as they approached the voting machine room.

At the registrar I presented my driver's license and confirmed my home address. "Which party's primary will you be voting in today?" "Republican," I choked, surprising myself by whispering the word. "Excuse me?" "Republican," I said, heat suddenly flushing my face as I cowered a little and glanced around to see if anyone overheard me. What was that about?

With my eSlate code in hand I was directed to the White aisle of voting machines (this is not racial segregation - the aisles are red, white and blue.) Of the 21 voting machines in the room no more than 6 were occupied at any single time. It seems someone miscalculated the appropriate ratio of registrars to voting machines while the line snakes through the lobby outside.

Another helpful poll worker accompanied me toward the White aisle. "See this code here? This code... uh, this code means you can use this same code in the election again for the real vote," she said, "uh, so with this code you can't vote on Tuesday." I had no idea what she was trying to tell me so I nodded and thanked her and snatched back my code receipt.

I entered my four digits and got down to business, and as I skipped past the eSlate instructions screen, I thought I saw the word "battery" appear in the corner in red, but I couldn't go back. Panic began to wash over me the way shame had when I announced my party primary selection, and I started to vote like mad. Somewhere between State Senator and 14th Court of Appeals Justice, Place 4 a guy in dreadlocks walked up to the machine beside me, entered his code, tapped his eSlate about three times and left. Meanwhile a poll worker in the blue aisle was explaining to a fellow voter how to operate the voting machine. With each repeated step his voice grew louder.

At last I made it through the ballot, clicking wheel spinning furiously in a race to beat what was probably an imagined low battery warning. I cocked back my forearm, index finger pointed board-straight, then hammered down on the red Cast Ballot button. Mission accomplished. "Your ballot has been cast!" the eSlate pronounced. Then just like an etch-a-sketch all my voting information disappeared, and the machine awaited a new citizen ready to practice democracy on a Speak N Spell.