NP: The Best Of Pete Townshend

I was a little worried about my vote today, seeing as how I never actually told the powers that be that I moved, but I was still registered at my old polling place, and my neck of the woods is so firmly Democratic that I can't imagine anyone going out of their way to challenge my ballot.

About that ballot. With all the talk of electronic voting machines, I feel like we regressed. Instead of the butterfly ballot, we got an 11" x 17" two-sided sheet of cardstock with broken arrows pointing to each candidate, and you had to fill in the broken part of the arrow for the candidate of your choosing with a crayon black pen. I understand trying to make the process easy enough that a 5-year old could do it, but this really did feel a little like kindergarten. Where's my hackable ATM, dammit?!

This election is kind of surreal for me, in that "a part, but yet apart" way. I feel the magnitude of this election in a big and visceral way in terms of the national landscape, but locally, there's really not a whole heck of a lot going on. I have this gap in my politcal attention span -- once I get lower than, say, governor, I get really ambivalent until you come all the way down to mayor and alderman. Offices like County Board President and even State Representative just haven't ever permeated my consciousness. I didn't even know who my state senator was until I saw the ballot today.

But, unlike the primary -- and I still defend sitting that one out -- I did cast my vote, and mused to myself that if I were to run for political office, the biggest thing I would try to get done is make Election Day a holiday or move it to a weekend.