My Vote Counts Too…

I arrived outside Columbia Fire Department #3 at 6:15 AM, ready to see the commotion and turn in my ballot. The break of day had not yet come, nor had anyone else. Well, a few people had.

I entered the fire station moments before an older woman (I cannot give a better description, as I was devoting all of my attention to remembering what ballot to ask for and what oval to darken). I was given a choice, paper ballot or electronic ballot? Hmmm. Old-fashioned or New Age? Of course I went with the New Age, it is my generation’s age after all. I walked back to the lone electronic voting station and received help from a rather robust gentleman who we will call Cal. Cal did his thing, removed his piece of equipment from the machine so that I could vote in private, but just after I selected which party to vote for, this the New Age computer informed me that there was a not enough paper in the machine.

“Not enough paper in the machine?” I repeated.

The machine chimed back. “That’s right, didn’t you hear me the first time?”

I had, so naturally I called Cal back over.

“Cal, something is wrong,” I stated.

We started over the whole process (which took all of ten seconds). Cal put his reader card into the machine and again I was off. I got to select my party…again and then, failure (again). The New Age electronic ballot required more paper (I want to restate that in case you missed it: “The New Age electronic ballot required more paper”), but no one at the Columbia Fire Department #3 was qualified to repair the high tech voting paraphernalia. They needed to call in the boys from downtown. When Cal and the others realized this electronic voting machine was on the fritz, I was told I was going to have to take a paper ballot.

You can imagine the decision I then had to make: do I go “old school” and take the paper ballot, like the long gone woman who was behind me when I walked in had done, or do I not vote altogether just to prove a point about modern technology and its follies? After much deliberation, and awkward silence, I moped back over to the long table of voting volunteers and received instruction on how to properly fill in the oval next to my candidate’s name.

After the training session, I was ready. I stood straight up, took my ballot, and walked over to the voting table. I took a seat in one of the chairs and made sure all three walls surrounding my desk were stable. I wouldn’t want them to fall and have my neighbors see who I voted for…they might want to copy.

Ten minutes later, my oval was darkened completely and I felt confident enough in my oval filling abilities to get up and take the ballot to another machine to turn it in for grading. This machine though, only required my paper ballot and was not yet broken. I fed it into the machine and was counted as the fifth person at that polling place to submit my ballot. I had successfully voted! Now what?