On the Eve of The Big Fat Mess

This is a map of the 22nd Congressional District of Texas. Looks like a Rorsach ink blot, doesn't it? My precinct is in the roundish-looking blobby portion on the left. This has become one prime piece of political real estate since last week's polls showed that the Republican write-in candidate is in a statistical dead heat with the Democratic candidate who is actually listed on the ballot. Here's a review of the situation previously posted on QG.

The campaign ratcheted up several notches over the weekend. El Jefe and I had been in Austin attending the UT football game (Go Horns!) and returned to 7 calls on the voicemail--6 were political ads, including one from George W. and TWO from Laura Bush. One was a strange call saying that another write-in candidate was "too liberal" for the district. Huh? That little mystery was cleared up when I read in the newspaper that the Democratic Party paid for those calls in the hope of dividing the conservative Republican vote between the write-in candidate chosen by the party and the other guy. Oh those wacky Dems! There's a wily political ploy for you.

Mrs. America (yes, she competes in Mrs America pagents in her spare time), the election judge for my precinct, just stopped by to tell me we need to be there extra-early tomorrow morning. She's been told that there will be poll-watchers from both parties at our precinct. In the ten years or more I've been an election official, we've never had poll watchers attend our election. We've also heard rumors that both parties have lawyers poised for a courthouse sprint. Ugh.

The write-in campaign is sure to cause big delays. If someone wants assistance writing in their ballot, then two election workers plus one poll watcher from each party have to observe the proceedings at the e-slate machine. We'll have a PDA loaded with the names of everyone registered to vote in the precinct so we can pre-screen voters while they are in line and save them time by sending them to their correct precinct before they try to sign in. Since we are Tom DeLay's home precinct, we also expect a visit from the press. Oh joy.

Light a candle and say a prayer for St. Betty, Mrs. America, Sonia and me tomorrow as we do our d$%^*st to assure that the election is conducted with complete integrity. Spooky Rach and Mindy--please have the Texas Towncar Of Justice ready to roll! I'll be blogging throughout the day as I did during the primary, but there's no internet access in the voting area so I won't be able to post until after the polls close and we have gone home.

If you didn't vote early--vote tomorrow!