On doing my civic duty

"Don't forget to vote." Seriously?! I've been reminded every day for the last two years that I needed to vote on November 4, 2008. And now today, there are people and signs everywhere reminding me. How forgetful do you have to be to have forgotten to vote today? Um, no offense to you if you forgot . . .

I voted this morning. Walked right in and voted. No line. No wait. It's the beauty of living in a township with only a few thousand registered voters. As I was watching lines more than two hours long in some parts of the country, I was thinking that if I lived there, I might find someone voting for the candidate opposing the one I was voting for and asking her if she would want to leave with me. You know . . . our votes would cancel each other out anyway, and we wouldn't have to wait in line. Hmmm? Makes sense, right? No?

I showed up at the wrong precinct. Again. Four years ago, we were living in our apartment and I went to the address on my voter registration card, waited in line for close to an hour and then was told that the card was misprinted and I was supposed to vote at a different precinct. Today, I went to the right building and got into the line for precinct 2 . . . which is the precinct that my card said I was in. Turns out that this card was wrong too. Someone needs to be double checking the cards the the voter registration people send out.

As I've read blogs of people who won't share who they're voting for, I usually assume who their candidate is based on their choice of words. You know, whether they say things like "I think the guy I voted for will make a great president" OR "I think the guy I voted for could make a great president." Obama supporters talk as if he's already been elected. McCain supporters are more tentative. But it's just a theory.

I think the voting lines would move much faster if the people working would, um, move faster. The ladies looking up my name in their big binders today (both times, actually) took a really long time. Don't get me wrong . . . I wasn't in any hurry. My morning was pretty open. But it seems that there are a lot of people in the news talking about how long voters are having to wait, so I just thought I'd put that out there as a suggestion. You know, for all of the election officials who frequent my blog.