Did My Vote Count?

Well, my wife and I voted early and often yesterday (just kidding, we voted only once). But a strange thing happened in the polling booth. As I pushed down on the electronic voting machine’s lever, I saw my choices appear in green and then suddenly disappear before I pushed the finished button. I thought I voted, but my x’s vanished after pushing them down. Hmm.

The last time I voted on these machines this did not happen: The green x’s, my choices, were highlighted in green until I was finished and then I pushed down on the finished button to complete my decisions. But we left the our local voting location and returned home. Well, my wife went home but I went to SuperFoodtown.

So I called my Dad early in the evening, he lives in the same county as me, and he told me the x’s remained until he pushed the finished button. So then I called me Mum, and she told me the same thing: The x’s stayed up on the polling booth’s interface until she was finished with her selections. Hmm (again).

Now my wife and I were both concerned as to whether or not our votes were being tallied. So at about 10 minutes before the polls closed here in New Jersey, I returned to the polling place where the man who was there all day for about 12 hours (a real trooper!) told me “a computer expert” had checked the errors in the machine and that my wife and I need not worry, our votes were counted. “OK,” I said, and bid farewell, and offered my well wishes to all the poll workers there.

But, in fact, I really have no idea as to whether my vote counted or not. And at this point I just don’t care: New Jersey politics is just so corrupt and unreasonable that I have lost some faith in it and nationwide people are just so confused it seems like they voted based solely on emotion and not reason, but I digress. …

The people have spoken and their message was clear: “President George W. Bush, you better listen to us — You haven’t in six years. We’ve kicked your Republican Party’s majority the heck out of the House of Representatives and, pending a recount, we have kicked ’em out of the Senate as well. We didn’t like the way you and your cohorts handled the 911 Commission’s questions, and we don’t like the path you’ve taken us down in the Iraq War. We wanted you to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but we didn’t much want to go to Iraq so hastily and lose more lives than were lost on Sept 11, 2001. We want you to change, Mr. President, and fast. What really happened to ‘compassionate conservatism?'”

Yes, the president enjoys considerable support in pockets of the country and yes, I voted for one Republican this year. I am a registered Republican because I like choices and the Republicans in New Jersey have offered such for their party’s primaries whereas the Democrats have offered very little. But the people said they wanted change big time. And they now have it. What does this mean? How well will the Democrats lead us and represent us in the Congress? Will there now be the kind of effective bi-partisan leadership that worked so well for our country during World War II? I hope so.

We need checks and balances. We need smart leadership that is responsive to the people at large and that considers many sides of the debate thoroughly before decisions are made. And we need to change the course in Iraq in order to save American life, the lives of our allies, and we better consider the lives of the Iraqi people more sensitively.

It’s not a black and white world, as the president and his most devout followers seem to think. There are many gray areas. Wise leadership considers the gray areas well enough to make intelligent decisions. In this realm, the partisanship of GWB’s leadership has not served us well.

Today, I am rather proud to be an American. And I do not mind the results one bit. We have needed checks and balances for some time now. And now, I am hoping for election reform. We need a paper trail badly, so as to have a chance for an unquestionable recount if necessary in close election races. And one party rule for too long seems to lead to ignorance and arrogance toward those who “think different.”

As I write this on my ancient Mac (see 2000 PowerBook G3 at apple-history.com) old as it may be, I realize how fortunate I am to be an American and to enjoy the wealth of resources that exist in the USA. I have faith that things will work out for the better, and my wife and I are in complete agreement. I am a lucky man.