D.D. 10/18/06

Today was the first day of early voting, so I went to vote. The line was longer this time than the primary vote, but I half expected that ... and it's hard to complain when people are actually completing their civic obligation. This will be easy, I thought as I entered the Election Commission. I don't have to vote on the contentious Mayor of Clarksville race or the city charter amendments - just the Governor's race, the Senate race, and the two state wide ballot intiatives.

Simple enough. Besides, I had already made up my mind on everything except the seniors tax freeze intiative before I even walked in the building. Ah...simple ballot. "Blah ... blah blah ... review your ballot ... blah blah" Hey, I thought - it's probably a good idea to review my ballot this time, because there were lots of names in the Governor's race.

Big mistake. Being some what impatient with computer, I kept hitting the back page button assuming it would stop when I got back to the beginning of the ballot. Instead, you can imagine my horror when I ended up on a voter preferences screen that allowed me to adjust the darkness of the displays on the new digital machines and select the ballot to display "en espanol!" Heh, I thought, who knew you could change the language of the ballot? I paused half a second more with the thought that some anti-illegal immigration groups would probably be pissed that you can change your ballot preferences to display en espanol. Then I started looking for an out of this preferences page. Get me out of here.

I vainly pressed the English button, hoping that would pop me back to the first page on the ballot - instead it did nothing. Then I tried to press the "Cancel" button. An alert: "WARNING: By press yes you will void your ballot! Are you sure?" Um...no. I don't want to do that! Oh no, I thought - I might actually have to ask for help ... voting. I mean come on, that would be such an insult to my pride. I write a politics blog.

You can figure this machine out, Adam, really it's not that hard. Finally I noticed a small scrall in the corner of the screen: Next Page. Click. There it was - the first page of the ballot with my X still in place. Ah good. Through the straights of Charybdis. Next page. Next page. Confirm vote. Okay. Finally, the red lights come on and cast my ballot. At least I think I did. It seemed to go through.

So now I'm wearing the obligatory "I voted" sticker, I just hope I'm not broadcasting a lie.