Super Duper Tuesday came with a distinct buzz here in California...
Signs appeared on streets and students became human billboards...all in the name of their favorite candidate.
I went to my local voting station, a modest room in a nearby apartment complex, and waited for my turn to vote. I overhead a conversation going on between the volunteers as I waited.
"We're having them go to the machine first." "Now that we have it working, try to get them to use the machine instead of the paper ballots."
I, being the loudmouth patriot you know and love, quickly spoke up and asked, "What do you mean, try to get us to use the machine?!? Why?"
"Well, we're running out of paper ballots, so we are trying to get people to use the machine first, so that we don't run out of ballots."
Was this a nightmare? I looked over to the machine they were referring to. When I had first entered the building, it was opened up, and someone was working on it. It was very small, portable, and frail looking...certainly not the picture of security and infallibility.
My blood got hot, and my face probably betrayed my emotion. They quickly assured me that I could have a paper ballot.
Oh...thanks...
So, I took my ballot and went to my low-tech voting station...just the way I like it.
But the story doesn't end there. As I was carefully marking my votes, I overheard yet another telling conversation between the volunteers. Apparently, only half of the list had shown up to vote, which was about 200 out of approximately 400 voters.
So, let me get this straight. We are running out of ballots even though only half of the expected voters have shown up? How does that make sense?
Shouldn't there be at least as many ballots as we have voters?
