The 2012 Election Is Over For Me Because I Have Voted

I have now done my civic duty, voting wise, for the 2012 election.

Just a few minutes ago a nice polling place worker lady slapped the "I Voted" sticker on my shirt you see in the picture.

It is 4 years since I last early voted. The last time I voted was in the 2010 election and I did that voting on Election Day, thus at my neighborhood East Regional Library.

Early voting, for me, takes place at the Handley Community Center.

There was no line to wait in to vote today. I walked in and handed my Voter Registration card a nice lady working a computer. I said something like, "You've gone to using a computer now, rather than look through a big book of registered voters?"

The lady looked perplexed at me and said, "this is early voting, the big books get used on Election Day."

Then I remembered how I was perplexed when I voted in 2010 due to the method being different, as in there was not the video game like voting method I remembered using previously, in 2008.

Well, the video game method is used for the early voting, not the Election Day voting.

After the first nice lady found on the computer that I was, indeed, a registered voter I moved on to the next nice lady, she being the one who gave me my personalized 4 digit ballot code.. And slapped an "I Voted" sticker on me before I'd actually completed the task.

When I got to the voting booth it was a repeat of what happened in 2008, with me being a bit bumpuzzled at first, til I remembered how to spin the dial and enter the personalized 4 digit ballot code, 7934.

I had another slight bumpuzzling moment when I could not seem to be able to move from voting for President to the next thing that required a vote.

A lot of electioneering seems to take place at Texas polling places, as in all the signs you see in the picture. What you can't see is 4 people waving a sign supporting a candidate.

A lot of the voting options on the Texas ballot had a Republican as the only option. I found that a bit unsettling.