Voted Without a Glitch

I got to my voting place about half past noon. Lots of cars in the parking lot, but no line to wait in to vote. I just walked up to the first person I saw, handed her my registration card and helped her figure out what my last name was and where it was located on the alphabet. Eventually, another precinct worker (is that what they are called?) showed up and between the 3 of us we were able to find me on the voter roll.

I asked the precinct workers if this little room was actually where the caucus was going to take place. They confirmed that it was. I asked how can that work? Various voices chimed in with various comments along the lines that it may be a disaster, we don't know what we'll do about parking, we don't know where to put the people. And that they are hoping to have a police presence in place. I can't wait.

Each time I've voted in Texas the method has been different. The last time a sort of video game device was used. If I remember right you entered a code that you'd been given upon signing in. You then spun a dial to move to different spots on the electronic ballot. You could go back and forth over the pages changing your vote if you wanted to. When you were satisfied you were done you hit a button and a nice big American flag appeared on the screen and waved in the wind. I don't remember if music played. I suspect not.

The voting process today seemed to have gone back in time, somewhat. I was handed a paper ballot, then directed to a voting booth. It was not very private. You had a pen and filled in a square by whoever you wanted to vote for. The guy next to me asked the election worker if he had to vote for everyone on the list because all he wanted to vote for was Barack.

When I finished voting for the only person I was voting for, mainly because I had no clue about any of the other races or people running in them, despite some shady looking guy handing me a brochure when I walked in asking me to vote for him. I believe he was running for city council. So, upon finishing voting I was led to a copy/fax machine looking thing and told where to stick the ballot. It was sucked in, scanned and was not seen by me again.

I thought it quite odd that the election worker could clearly see who I was voting for. That did not seem right.

There was no Hillary sign at the voting location. There was a large Obama sign. And many others.