Election Inspection

"Democracy is a failure!" "The system is flawed!" "You can't trust Americans to make the right choice!"

I've heard these comments a lot recently. In reference to American Idol. Whatever. How many of the people complaining actually texted in a vote?

Better question, since, you know, it's actually important: How many people actually voted in their most recent local election?

I did. Sort of. Those same quotes I began this post with apply to my experience this past Tuesday as I (maybe?) voted on the latest California ballot propositions, measures proposed in an attempt to "fix" our state's budget woes.

I rode my bike to my polling place and an elderly lady with a Betty Boop voice greeted me and asked for my name. She checked it in her registration book, then read me an address to confirm that it was me. Just like each election for the past five years of my life, I was never asked to show any form of identification. Every time, I think how easy it would be to commit voter fraud by coming back a couple of hours later and providing a friend/neighbor/stranger's name.

Betty Boop asked if I needed a refresher on how the machine worked, but I declined, so the person next to her handed me a ballot. I chose the center booth, slid my ballot into the voting contraption and opened the booklet. The first choice was for President of the United States and my options included Dwight Eisenhower and Thomas Jefferson. Knowing immediately that something wasn't right, I checked the margin and saw "sample" printed, so I figured that that was just an example question and moved to the next page. Those questions were also ridiculous and also said "sample." Hmm, I thought, that's a lot of nonsense, I don't remember seeing a bunch of fake choices previously, but whatever. On the last page were two questions, the first being whether I supported instituting a federal lottery.

A federal lottery? How come I hadn't heard of this issue on the news? One of the propositions I had just studied up on before showing up had been about how to allocate California lottery revenues, so I punched how I was planning on answering that particular proposition with a "No." Then I realized that something must not be right. Where were the propositions I was supposed to be voting for?

"I think I messed up?" I said, more so asking, aloud, prompting a poll worker to come to assist me. "This doesn't seem like the right questions," I said, showing him the booklet. Studying it, he agreed I was right. After discussing it with a fellow worker, they decided they must have mixed up a sample booklet with a real booklet and left it out. I received a new ballot and used a different stand. Now here's the kicker: one of them then said, "Funny how no one's pointed that out all day."

Funny? Or scary?! I voted after 1 p.m. and the polling station had been open since 8 a.m. That's a long time for that error to go unnoticed. Part of me wants to say that if voters are that uninformed, I don't want them voting anyway, but then I consider myself a pretty savvy voter and even I was momentarily fooled and voted for a fake ballot measure. In that position, however, I had faith in the system and assumed I was the one who must be confused and wrong. I have no clue how many people voted incorrectly that day, but it's still disconcerting.

Now that's something worth screaming about. On a related note, and to answer the complaints of the American Idol viewers while I'm at it: it's the screaming. Adam didn't win the competition because he screams instead of singing. His screeching is nearly unbearable. Now get over it and worry about the fact that your votes might not really count when it really counts.