Joining Long Line Of Early Voters In Wichita Falls

The third Friday morning of the 2020 version of October was consumed by digesting the Texas version of Early Voting. 

Til I moved to Texas it had been a long long time since I had experienced voting at a polling place in a voting booth.

If I remember right, by the 1990s my Washington voting was by the permanent mail-in ballot method. For many years now I believe the only way to vote in Washington has been via the mail-in ballot method, as in mailing the ballot, or dropping it off at one of the strategically placed ballot boxes which look as secure as Fort Knox.

But, Texas is an entire different world. It is possible to get an absentee ballot in Texas. And for this election, due to COVID, the mail-in ballot method is possible, though not as easy to do as is the case in Washington. And a few other more progressive modern states.

My previous Early Voting at my Wichita Falls location have been at the Sikes Senter (I did not spell that wrong, it is Sikes Senter, not Sikes Center). The most recent time voting at Sikes Senter was the 2018 mid-term election.

Back then, no line. Just walk up, show the required I.D., vote and go. Taking maybe ten minutes.

Today my first voting attempt was at that aforementioned Sike Senter. I installed the required mask, entered the mall, and soon saw a line ahead of me. That can't be the voting line, I thought to myself, the voting location is way to the left. 

But by the time I was able to see the length of the mall I could see the line covered just about that entire length.

 I walked to the start of the line, to the voting booths, walked back to the end, asking a person at the halfway mark how long they had been in line.

Two hours was the answer.

I decided to try another Early Voting location.

That is part of the Sikes Senter line you see above. There were people behind me, as well.

I then drove to the next closest Early Voting location. A furniture store on Fairway. Got there, saw a lot of cars in the parking lot. And then saw the line, snaking out of the building and around the block.

So, I then decided to make a day of it and drove to the next closest Early Voting location, that being the County Courthouse, which is in downtown Wichita Falls.

Got to that location, easily found a place to park, then found the line, quickly confirmed it was about a half hour to get into the building and another half hour from that point. 

Decided to go for it. The wait did not seem to take an hour. But, I was distracted by doing text messages on my phone.

Before I knew it I was going through the final door, showing my I.D., getting my vote code and then directed to a machine, where I quickly voted, soon exiting, where I took the selfie photo you see at the top.

As you can see my attire was all blue today, which likely provides a clue as to how I voted...

Fighting My Way Through A Stormy Texas Tuesday To Early Vote

On this bleak, dreary, rainy final Tuesday of February I did my civic duty to do some dark very early Early Voting, as you can see via the "I Voted" sticker stuck to my reading glasses.

I tried to do the Early Voting thing last Friday at the East Regional Library. But that location no longer was available. So, it was back to the place I had long done the Early Voting thing, the Handley Community Center.

When I last Early Voted, at the aforementioned East Regional Library, I was not asked for photo identification. I was required to show photo I.D. today. I indicated I thought requiring such had been ruled illegal. I was told that that ruling had not yet been made.

I think the reason I was not  asked for photo I.D. the last time I Early Voted was due to the fact that those precinct workers were very sleepy. They had trouble finding my name on the roll. By the time my name was finally found we were all old friends, thus forgetting to ask to see my I.D., I assume.

Anyway, I'd not voted in a primary since 2008, so I forgot that one must indicate if one wanted the Republican or Democrat ballot. So, I did not get to vote for Donald Trump, just to do my little bit to muck things up.

With Early Voting out of the way, I now await the worsening of the ongoing storm. Below you are looking at the stormy view, minutes ago, from my patio overlook view of the world.

The temperature was 54 when I made my way to Handley to vote. The temperature has now fallen to 48. The temperature is scheduled to continue to fall, with strong winds scheduled to blow hard this afternoon. Along with some possibly thunder booming.

After being able to swim the past couple days I thought maybe this winter madness was over for the year. Clearly I thought wrong.....

Early Texas Voting At Fort Worth Library Thwarted Today Before Up Close Inspection Of New Art

The last time Texas had an election I was pleasantly surprised to see that my neighborhood East Regional Library had been added as an Early Voting location, obviating the need for the long drive to Handley to do some Early Voting.

So, today I decided to have myself a leisurely stroll to the East Regional Library to do some Early Voting. I knew the library was closed on Fridays, but figured that would not affect Early Voting.

However, upon arrival at the library parking lot I soon discovered that the two cars parked there were not early voters, because there was no Early Voting happening.

I arrived at the library right at noon, a timing which must never have happened before, because as I was looking at the plaque you see above, the Clock Tower bell began gonging, loudly, followed by a selection of religious greatest hits, like Amazing Grace, which I continued hearing long after I was a distance distant.

Til reading the Clock Tower plaque, you see above, I had no idea the Clock Tower had been presented  by the Citizens of East Fort Worth, with it being a project symbolizing the pride Eastsiders have in their neighborhood, what with it being the Gateway to the City where the West begins.

Let us continue on today's walk to another item of interest.

Lately whilst driving on Bridge Street I have noticed new art installations.

Back, late last year, when many locals were stunned at the revelation of a pseudo work of kinetic art which looked like a stylized, modernized trash can, at the center of the first of America's Biggest Boondoggle's traffic roundabouts under construction, and costing nearly a million bucks, we also learned that the city would be soon installing art on power boxes, with would beautify the apparent eyesores which I had never noticed prior to the apparent eyesores getting covered with art.

The below example I walked by today at the northwest corner of the intersection of Bridge and Bridgewood Streets.

A longhorn in a field of bluebonnets. It does catch ones eye as one drives, or walks, by. As one drives west on Bridge Street one sees many iterations of these works of art, depicting various themes, with most appearing to be somehow Texas related, though not as obvious as what you see above.

I don't know how much these works of art have cost the city. I would guess the price is no where near the almost million bucks the aluminum salute to trash cans cost.

It will be interesting to see how long these colorful pieces of plastic wrap last in the HOT Texas sun, which is starting to arrive, even now, prior to the blistering ULTRA HEAT of Summer.

I guess I will need to make that long laborious drive to Handley to do my Early Voting duty. But not today, that will need to wait til next week....

This Morning I Voted NO On Three Convoluted Fort Worth Propositions While Voting For Quanah Parker & Sam Houston

 I voted this morning and after I was done the nice poll working lady slapped the I Voted sticker on me you see here.

Every time I do the early voting I managed to forget how to work the dial that enters the numbers of the code you are given for your ballot.

One would think I would remember how to operate this voting video game, but I don't.

The nice poll working lady told me a lot of old folks have trouble with the voting video game.

I don't remember what race he was running in, but I voted for someone I did not think I would ever vote for.

Quanah Parker.

I also voted for Sam Houston, which is another Texan I never thought I would get to vote for.

And who could resist voting for someone with a cool name like Leticia Van de Putte?

The controversial Three Propositions related to the building of a new multipurpose arena in Fort Worth were odd, with the oddness being that the proposition contained verbiage I'd not seen in any of the propaganda that has been urging voters to vote for these propositions.

The actual wording on the ballot makes it sounds as if voting for these Three Propositions is an actual vote authoring the building of the arena.

I found a sample ballot, online, which for some odd reason had the words "Sample Ballot", graffitied across it.

I screencapped the ballot and cropped out the Proposition No. 2 part.

Proposition No. 2 in its entirety says...

"Authorizing the City of Fort Worth, Texas to provide for the planning, acquisition, establishment, development, construction and renovation of a multipurpose arena at the intersection of Harley Avenue and Gandy Street and other adjacent support facilities as a venue project, and to impose a livestock facility use tax on each stall or pen used or occupied by livestock during an event held on one or more consecutive days in which the venue project is used,not to exceed twenty dollars ($20.00) in the aggregate per stall or pen rental for any event, for the purpose of financing the venue project."

To me this sounds as if one votes NO one is voting to not authorize the City of Fort Worth to build this arena. Why has this not been made clear in any of the advertising about these Three Propositions?

Did the Forward Fort Worth Partnership PAC figure if they let voters know that voting no meant NO to the arena that the voters would have a greater tendency to vote NO? But that if the propaganda verbiage simplified it, that the voters would have a greater tendency to vote yes?

For Proposition #2 the Forward Fort Worth Partnership PAC's propaganda describes that proposition as simply "A user fee (tax) on livestock stalls and pens of $1 to $2 per day, not to exceed $20 per event."

How come on the actual ballot there is no mention of the $1 to $2 per day user fee? While the Forward Fort Worth Partnership PAC's propaganda makes voters think that is what they are voting for?

Very, very perplexing.

Does the concept of "voter fraud" extend to this type thing?

Walking With Wildflowers & Indian Ghosts After Voting For Basham, Nold & Kelleher

Prior to getting my daily aerobically induced endorphins I did my civic duty and voted for Basham, Nold & Kelleher for the Tarrant Regional Water District Board.

Prior to voting I met a local political celebrity. More on that in a subsequent blogging.

I do early voting at the Handley Community Center. Early voting uses these video game type voting machines. One would think I would remember how these video game type voting machines work, but I always seem to spend a second or two a bit bum puzzled.

This time the bum puzzlement came from the code entering part of the process that one must do before doing the voting. My code was 5099. But, I somehow read that as 5009. I caught my error before hitting the enter button.

The only other thing on the ballot, besides the Water Board, was two choices for City Council. Danny Scarth, I think that's how you spell the last name, and some guy I'd never heard of. I knew Danny Scarth is the incumbent and I knew I did not want to vote for him. Since I knew nothing about the other guy, I did not vote for a city councilman.

The ladies who run the early voting always seem to be having themselves a real fine time.

After doing my civic duty I drove to Arlington to the Village Creek Natural Historical Area to have myself a pleasant walk with the Native American Ghosts who haunt this location.

As you can see an orange yellow wildflower is now dominating the Village Creek Natural Historical Area's Wildflower Area.

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.