Within the next 10 days, I will be involved in two elections. The first one is a pleasure and concludes tomorrow—the election of the first board of directors for RevGalBlogPals, Inc. The email “polls” will be open until 10 am tomorrow morning, but so far we have received 45 ballots from the 49 members eligible to vote.
We won’t see that kind of turnout on Tuesday, November 7. No, gentle readers, what we are going to see is a BIG FAT MESS in Texas Congressional District 22. As one of the election workers for my precinct, I'll have to deal with it.
I’m not talking about the four-way gubernatorial circus: Governor Rick Perry vs. Carole "One Tough Grandma" Keeton Strayhorn vs. Kinky Friedman (of Kinky and the Texas Jewboys) vs. Democratic candidate Chris "Who?" Bell. That’s a state-wide problem. I’m talking about the write-in wrangle that is sure to develop in the congressional race to replace Tom DeLay.
Since the courts ruled that the Republican party could not put a substitute nominee on the ballot after DeLay resigned from the race, there is a big write-in campaign being mounted for the party’s choice, Houston councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. The Democratic candidate, Nick Lamson, normally would be the sacrificial lamb in this heavily Republican district, but not under these circumstances.
We have electronic voting machines, so technically, you don’t WRITE in, you type in. But not like on a keyboard. It’s not a touch screen system, it is an e-slate machine with a tracker ball. The ballot will contain the candidates for this race plus a “write-in” option. If you choose “write-in”, then a new computer window comes up and you use the tracker ball to laboriously spell out the name, then click on “accept” and then click on “vote”. Got that? I didn’t think so.
If you misspell the name you are trying to write in, or try to use a short-cut, like using the initials or last name or first name of the write-in candidate it will PROBABLY be counted. But there’s an election commission that will have to review each deviance from the exact spelling and determine what the voter meant. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is not going to be easy to spell for our many English-as-a-second-language voters (or the native English speakers either). Plus there is no hyphen on the pad. Hanging chad deja vu anyone?
Oh, did I forget to mention that there are TWO races for this position? Yes, indeedy, Tom DeLay’s unexpired term must also be filled –from November 7 to December 31. The Republican candidate Sekula-Gibbs’ name IS on the ballot in that race. But Democrat Nick Lamson’s is not. He chose not to run in that race. I can just hear the Democratic voters asking why he’s not listed, because this race is the FIRST one on the official ballot. So Sekula-Gibbs could win the unexpired term and then loose the race for the full term.
Here’s my point: Texas has very liberal early voting laws. The polls are already open in the early voting locations. There are evening and weekend hours, too. Everyone needs to vote early and bring their patience with them.
A.BIG.FAT.MESS. No doubt we’ll be on the national news again. I’m not predicting anything else. I gave that up after the March primary.
We won’t see that kind of turnout on Tuesday, November 7. No, gentle readers, what we are going to see is a BIG FAT MESS in Texas Congressional District 22. As one of the election workers for my precinct, I'll have to deal with it.
I’m not talking about the four-way gubernatorial circus: Governor Rick Perry vs. Carole "One Tough Grandma" Keeton Strayhorn vs. Kinky Friedman (of Kinky and the Texas Jewboys) vs. Democratic candidate Chris "Who?" Bell. That’s a state-wide problem. I’m talking about the write-in wrangle that is sure to develop in the congressional race to replace Tom DeLay.
Since the courts ruled that the Republican party could not put a substitute nominee on the ballot after DeLay resigned from the race, there is a big write-in campaign being mounted for the party’s choice, Houston councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. The Democratic candidate, Nick Lamson, normally would be the sacrificial lamb in this heavily Republican district, but not under these circumstances.
We have electronic voting machines, so technically, you don’t WRITE in, you type in. But not like on a keyboard. It’s not a touch screen system, it is an e-slate machine with a tracker ball. The ballot will contain the candidates for this race plus a “write-in” option. If you choose “write-in”, then a new computer window comes up and you use the tracker ball to laboriously spell out the name, then click on “accept” and then click on “vote”. Got that? I didn’t think so.
If you misspell the name you are trying to write in, or try to use a short-cut, like using the initials or last name or first name of the write-in candidate it will PROBABLY be counted. But there’s an election commission that will have to review each deviance from the exact spelling and determine what the voter meant. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is not going to be easy to spell for our many English-as-a-second-language voters (or the native English speakers either). Plus there is no hyphen on the pad. Hanging chad deja vu anyone?
Oh, did I forget to mention that there are TWO races for this position? Yes, indeedy, Tom DeLay’s unexpired term must also be filled –from November 7 to December 31. The Republican candidate Sekula-Gibbs’ name IS on the ballot in that race. But Democrat Nick Lamson’s is not. He chose not to run in that race. I can just hear the Democratic voters asking why he’s not listed, because this race is the FIRST one on the official ballot. So Sekula-Gibbs could win the unexpired term and then loose the race for the full term.
Here’s my point: Texas has very liberal early voting laws. The polls are already open in the early voting locations. There are evening and weekend hours, too. Everyone needs to vote early and bring their patience with them.
A.BIG.FAT.MESS. No doubt we’ll be on the national news again. I’m not predicting anything else. I gave that up after the March primary.
7 comments:
I heard a report about this on NPR the other day, and they interviewed Sekula-Gibbs. Lordy! What a mess. Is a tracker ball the thing they have on the public computers at Borders Book Store? If so, I would never ever be able to vote for her, because I can never ever make those darn things work!
Bless your heart. You and the others working at the polls are angels, especially this time.
What do you suppose the world would be like if Americans voted at the same rate RevGalBlogPals do?
I early voted! Someone give me a star!
I didn't realize that other state election processes were as well run as Ohio's ;)
Good luck, QG. One of my attorney friends here is on a commission to pursue (ensure would be too strong a word) a fair electoral process and I imagine that she, too, is anticipating an extension of her already two-year-old headache.
I sure miss working the polls.
I'm looking forward to doing it again when I'm out of school.
Could someone develop a butterfly rollerball ballot? That would be just about perfect.
Hi, I read all the time but never comment. But, I early-voted today in my county (not the one with the write in problem). The tracker-ball thing is not so easy. The election worker was encouraging older voters to use the paper ballots! I wanted to try out the electronic one, but it certainly was far from user-friendly. Maybe we should just ask the Nintendo people to make one.
like the Nintendo idea :)
Post a Comment