voting hassles

We went to vote at the VFW today (our new polling place this year), and there were no signs about the fact that voting was going on. The only door that showed light inside was a door to the VFW lodge/bar and a bunch of old guys eating breakfast were inside. They pointed us (my wife, my neighbor and me) to the other side of the building, which looked closed up. As we stood there commenting "so, where do we go?", a guy came out through the door and we realized we needed to go in there.

My wife presented her ID, and after re-spelling her name several times, they found her and said "OK, and had her sign the book". I then presented my ID to the same worker and said "and I'm right below her, same address". The women looked at it concernedly and pointed out that my address did not match my registration address (something that, according to the secretary of state's web page and the flyer at the library, is not a problem). They asked me for additional proof of my address, which I told them I did nto have. I explained that it didn't matter, as the flyer said this is no problem. Her response was "well, the rules they gave out were kind of vague". I explained that I had nothing else, and that I live at and own the home on the registration sheet. Finally, after showing my employee ID and then getting into an argument (they laughed after I showed them the ID, because it had no address), I was allowed to vote.

When we got outside, after complaining that it was hard to find the way in, the old VFW guys who eat breakfast there every morning had hand-written a sign with an arrow that pointed to the correct entrance door.

My parents had a similar experience over in a suburb of Cleveland, where the voting place was listed as the "Junior High", but they had to walk around inside to figure out that voting was in the "wrestling room", which is a side room off of the Gym. Read my mother's e-mail below:

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Mother's E-mail:

There was no sign visible on the middle school to show to go into the wrestling gym. People were going into the main entrance of the Jr. High. I think they had a sign up there. Many people did not understand that they had to present an I.D. to vote. Also, people were voting on provisionals and not stopping back at the registration table to give a card to the workers, and 3 votes would have been just "chucked" if I hadn't said, "No, I am not in a hurry. Take care of this now so you can count those votes." It took them about 6 minutes to straighten it out. If it hadn't been for this old woman in her 80's that was working there, those provisionals would not have been counted, as it held up the line, and the younger (my age and older) workers were saying, "They didn't even stop by here to give us their cards, so that's just tough." The older lady said, "Well, what they had to do wasn't explained well enough." Then she started giving orders as to what to do, and they got it straightened out.

long time no post

As you've noticed, my posting rate has decreased quite a bit these days. I've been rather busy at work, or at least, I've been there more often, because I have been stuck on a late shift, which will happen every other month....

Of course, next year, I will likely be furloughed for two weeks without pay, as the congress is planning on cutting our budget dramatically next year (while asking us to carry the additional load of the new Medicare prescription drug plan AND only replacing 1 employee for every 8 retirees....). The solution proposed by the head of our Agency to this gap between our budget and the amount of work we can get done is to close our doors to the public once per pay period for 10 pay periods, thereby preventing us from filing for unemployment, while also docking our pay. The idea is that congress will "get the message" that the budget needed to be higher. . .and then next year they will up it in order to prevent that from happening again. Boy do I love being a pawn in that game.

I am looking forward to having Veteran's day off and the long weekend associated with that. Several people are coming up to spend the weekend (or part of it), and if you haven't been invited, feel free to stop by. The original invitees were invited when the idea came up at Bryan Bird's cabin, so those people got the reserved spaces. If you are reading this (and you actually know me), feel free to drop in that weekend if you happen to be in BG. Just e-mail me ahead of time so know if/when to expect you.