well_lahdidah is mad as hell about voting this morning. Not because I dragged her out of bed before she's usually awake, though, or the 60 minutes we spent in line.The young woman at the polling place started by asking her for her ID.
"I'm not required to show an ID," she said. "I have voted here before."
Sure enough, they look her up and there is no "identification required" next to her name. She signs her name next to the signature on file in the registry. The young volunteer says, "Those signatures don't match at all." Which, of course, they did—but chances are the volunteer was either irritated at being challenged, or was eager to do her best to insure all votes were valid. (Either way, it's still not right.) After a short stand-off,
well_lahdidah finally gave in and coughed up her driver's license, primarily because there were a lot of people behind us still waiting in line, but she wasn't happy about it. "Of course the signatures match because they're both my signatures.""Look," the young woman said, "Maybe next time you'd like to volunteer so you can see what it's like on this side of the table. We're always looking for more help."
OK, I'm going to be a jerk here, but don't get all righteous for your one day of volunteering if you can't get it right. One of the other polling officials actually recognized
well_lahdidah because we see him every time we vote (and we haven't missed one yet). This volunteer, on the other hand, we don't know from Adam and is suddenly telling us what she thinks the rules are? There are a lot of johnny-come-latelies about, and although I appreciate their newfound interest in the voting process, maybe they ought to be a little more seasoned before they jump in the fray.***
The voters in line were so young compared to past elections, and I'm sure the majority were required to show ID as they had probably never voted at that polling place before. I joked that it was the first time the average voter age was lower than retirement age. A young woman ahead of us was shocked to discover there were only three voting booths, although that's the number of voting booths they've had at past elections.
Also, there was no waiting for people whose last names began N-Z. (I laughed aloud when a man asked, "what about P?") There was a line a block long for A-M. Where are all the Smiths and Williams?
