Early Voting For Clyde Picht

I forgot to mention, in the previous blogging about going to Tandy Hills Park today, that on the way to do some high humidity hiking I saw that the public library I drive by to get there was an Early Voting location. So, I told my Gang of Four Hikers that we were going to go do our part to overthrow that Ruling Junta I blogged about this morning.

The polling place was a bit lonely. There were two people manning the station.

Voting has gotten so high tech. Is it like this everywhere now? Or is it a Texas thing? First my driver's license was scanned. This somehow established me as a legit voter and not some convicted felon forever banned from voting. Then a machine printed up some paper. Pieces of paper went to various places, including one piece handed to me that had the number code I had to enter into the voting machine.

The Texas voting machine is like some sort of video game. You enter your code by spinning a dial til the right numbers show up. Hitting enter to choose each number. Then you spin the dial some more til you get to who you want to vote for. Then you hit enter.

Then you do some more spinning and you're asked to confirm that this is how you want to vote on your ballot. You then hit enter again and when the American flag waves in all its red, white and blue glory, you're done.

There were only 2 things to vote on on this ballot. For mayor and for city councilman. I do not recollect ever voting in Washington when there was not an awful lot to vote on, Initiatives, Referendums, Bond Issues, various people.

I'm thinking maybe this thing of having only 2 items to vote on might be part of the reason the voter turnout is so low. It's a little hard to get the masses worked up over something like overthrowing Fort Worth's Ruling Junta by tossing out its current corrupt mayor. One would think it wouldn't be hard to get the masses worked up to do that, but here in Fort Worth, it is.

Well, I've done my part. That's 4 confirmed votes for Clyde Picht.

Texas Early Voting Breaks Record By Huge Margin

Texans early voted in record numbers. Early voting ended Friday. Millions of Texans have already done their voting duty. Other states with early voting have also had record breaking numbers.

Tuesday will be an interesting day. I'll have to remember to go to my polling place, the library, to see how busy it is. I need a new book to read, anyway.

Barack Obama is going to spend election night in Chicago at an event with thousands of others who managed to get tickets. Up to a million more people are expected to be on the streets of Chicago. Those people riot over all sorts of things, winning or losing a sports game, political conventions.

John McCain will be slumming it election night at the Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix. No word on if a million people are expected on the streets in Phoenix.

Meanwhile, over in Africa, should John McCain's opponent win, celebrations are expected to be huge all over the continent. I expect that might happen in other areas of the globe as well.

Say what you want about America's supposed fallen standing in the world, what other nation's election can cause people all over the world to want to celebrate?

Early Voting in Texas Breaking Records

Well, I've just returned from early voting. The early voting is breaking records all across Texas. You can see from the photo that my polling station at the Handley-Meadowbrook Community Center was very busy.

The line was long but it moved fast. Everyone seemed to be in a happy mood. I over heard one older guy say he thinks everyone in America wants to have a say this time.

The voting machines in Texas are very high tech. After you sign in you are given a piece of paper with a 4 digit code. Mine was 7027. You had to enter the code by spinning a dial til the number you wanted was highlighted and then you hit enter.

This wasn't too confusing to me, but I overheard a lot of people getting a lot of help. I know people my own age, well, one, with seriously degraded thinking who would have been befuddled by the voting machine.

Outside the polling place there were dozens of signs stuck in the ground. I thought that was against the rules. There were also campaigners sitting at a table under the tree you see in the photo.

A semi-interesting side note regarding my polling place. It happens to be the closest polling place to the spot where Lee Harvey Oswald is buried. That's a sentence I could never have imagined writing 20 years ago.