Election Day 2006

What a beautiful day here in Scottsdale — a cloudless cerulean blue sky and a somewhat warm 91 ° temperature.   We get up and go through our morning routine before heading to the polls.   Our polling place is not too far from the house at an elementary school.   I expected lines out the door but there was no one ahead of us when we got there, although there were a handful of people inside already voting.   I would imagine most people had come much earlier on their way to their workplaces.

The poll workers were friendlier than usual which was nice.   After showing identification and signing in we were handed two ballots each.   These are long card stock sheets that we fill out back and front.   Norm and I were prepared with our sample ballot filled out last night.   We sat down at the table together and went through the ballot.   They give us black markers and we fill in a line next to the name or the yes or no answer on each item.   10 minutes later we are all done.   We take our ballots to a machine that reads them and collects each ballot.   Over 600 people had already voted.   I put my ballots in first and the machine makes an error message noise.   Oh no — what went wrong?   It seems I over voted.   Apparently I voted for two people for the college district board instead of one person.   How could I make such a mistake?   Oh well — Norm writes “spoiled” on the messed up ballot, they give me another ballot and I go back and fill it out all over again.   Norm has fun teasing me and the whole room is laughing at what he is saying.   Somehow I blocked it out and I don’t remember what he said — but it was kind of funny.

Another 10 minutes later and I’m done voting and this time my ballot passes muster with the collection machine.   They hand us our “I’ve Voted” stickers and off we go.   Now it’s time for the chiropractor and a quick bite to eat.

I hope you voted today!