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Gnarled Beauty

Gnarled Beauty
©2007. all rights reserved

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Double Bubble Ballot Trouble

I been bamboozled. I been took. I been poll-taxed and butterflied. It's not as if I were some senior citizen voting in Palm Beach County, FL, circa November 2000. I am a young-ish college educated professional, but here I am, another citizen, disenfranchised by the ballot. On Super Tuesday, I discovered that I too was among many LA County voters who had been struck by the Democratic Ballot "Double Bubble" Trouble.

As a non-partisan voter, in CA, the Democratic party allowed us non-Dems to vote in their primary. As a permanent absentee voter, I requested the Democratic ballot, filled it out and mailed it back before the end of January--long before Super Tuesday. That should have been the end of it--ballot received, vote counted. WRONG!
The geniuses who designed the DEMOCRATIC ballot for non partisans added an extra "bubble" that had to be filled in order to designate that the voter wanted to vote for the democratic Party. (Duh--like, isn't that obviously my intent since I asked for the Democratic ballot?
Further, the machines that count the ballots are programmed to reject the ballot if the little party bubble isn't filled out.
Here's the salt in the wound. The ballot requests that we VOTE for ONE of either
AMERICAN INDEPENDENT and DEMOCRATIC PARTY, BUT only the Democratic party has a bubble option.
Hunh? you say? Confused? yeah. I feel you!
The ballot designers set us up to be disenfranchised with their Mandatory, Fatal false choice. Did they note that this bubble was MANDATORY ANYWHERE on this ballot? NO!
Did they ask themselves, WHY are we making people indicated they are voting for the Democratic Party when the Ballot only has Democratic Names on it?
Should it not be self evident that when a non-partisan asks for a democratic ballot that the voter INTENDS to vote for the Democratic slate? Hmmm. I suppose they needed the "Anvil of the Obvious" to drop on their genius heads to figure that out. Instead they decide to Screw the people who are trying to help them out by giving them their votes! It's like someone inviting you to their party and insulting you! Maybe next time I will decline their invitation and stay at may own non-party. See how they like that!
I paid $95 fee to became a citizen of this country so I could vote and have my voice heard. I will be damned if my vote doesn't count. I will get my money's worth. Well maybe I have. This ballot was not worth the paper it was written on. This is a first world country. Can they not figure out how to make a simple, clear, effective ballot?
Anvil moment here: What if somebody out there, does not want folk to vote?

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