I Voted, Colorado

Voting is different here in Colorado than it was back on the East Coast. In New Jersey, and I remember it was the same basic things when my parents voted in New York, the voting was in a mechanical voting booth. You would go to a desk and sign the big book. The would give you a sheet of paper. You would take the paper over to a voting machine. An assistant would take the paper and put it somewhere on the side of the machine. You would pull a big mechanical handle that would close the curtain behind you. Then you would flip the levers to indicate your vote. After, you would push the big handle, which would record your vote, reset the levers and open the curtain.

Here in Colorado, the beginning of the process is the same. You wait on line and sign the big book. I went with my wife, as she dropped her car off for service. At first she was going to vote before she dropped off her car. But she called me to tell me the line was an hour long. After I picked her up at the shop, I debated the merit of going to vote verses waiting until later. I decided it would be better to wait, and get it done in the morning. So we went back over to wait in the line. After about 10 minutes in line, they started saying there was no wait for 2 other districts. It turned out we were one of them. The big line turned out to be for an adjacent district. We wondered if that district was related to some of the higher density apartments in the area.

Before you can sign the book, you have to fill out a piece of paper with your name and birth date. Then we went up, showed our government issued picture IDs - our driver’s licenses and signed the book in turn. But there is another extra step in Colorado: you have to fill in a bubble next to your name. I guess this proves you know how to fill in a machine-readable bubble. This is important, as this is how you vote in Colorado. The book signer manager gives you a slip of paper with a number. You walk a step to the right (no jumps to the left, now) and trade the paper for what looks like some test to get in a University. It is a long page with a bunch of places you can fill in bubbles with a pen. The woman instructed me to find an empty stand, fill in both sides, and return the sheet to the box at near the entrance.

It took a moment to find a stand. The stand was a small desk with sides to help privacy a little, and a light above. It seemed like taking a test, so as I passed my wife I whispered: 'what did you get for number 3?' I went to an empty stand close to the end. On the desk there was a felt pen to fill in the bubbles. This pen was easier to fill in the bubbles than the ball point pen you use to fill in the bubble in the signature book.

The voting started with the national elections for president. The names, and the party affiliations were listed going down in the first column. The instructions for each section to vote that says 'Vote for one'. Then there were the representatives to vote for: national, then local. In one case there was only one person to vote for. As the party was not the party I usually vote for I did not vote for that person. Then there were local issues to vote for or against. I voted mixed on those. There was one to improve transportation - roads, bridges, and public transportation. While I thought it was a pretty good idea, I did not like the type and level of funding required. They were asking to raise the local sales tax another 1 percent. This would be on top of raising it more than 1 percent since I've moved to Colorado 4 years ago. If this one passes, we will be rapidly heading towards having a higher tax rate than Manhattan! I don't see raising sales taxes that high. And I object to taxes sales for transportation. It seems to me the tax should be more closely tied to the use. Such as gasoline tax. Not that I want to spend more for gasoline, but it makes more sense. Make gas cost higher, and people are a little more likely to take public transportation. They might have convinced me to go along with sales tax if it were much smaller, say maybe 1/4 percent.

Blogs I read that posted about voting:
My Single Mom Life
Crusty French Fries
Floopie
Go 2 The Start
One Girl's Life
Onediful's World
Tequila Mockingbird
Welcome to my Crazy Life
Boing Boing
Dave Barry
Slash Dot
Misanthropic Tendencies
Electric Bugaloo
The Long and Winding Road
Geek and Girl Girl voted early!