Bloodless Coup

ditto. it felt good to vote before work for the first time ever, and up here in my oh-so-crucial swing state, the biddies (wo)manning the tables and the booths were, by 8AM, all atwitter over what evidently they believed to be extraordinary turn-out.

i overheard one say, "I've never seen it like this before." upon conveying this anecdote to a colleague, he replied, "Yeah, and they're oooooold."

it's all pretty amazing when you really think about it, this flawed process we have, and it's pretty hard not to be a Proud American on election day.

Those biddies have probably been making sure elections work longer than you two have been alive.

now now -- you needn't tell me; my dear beloved grandma, transplanted in her youth from dixie to brooklyn (and who will owe me $20 should kerry win), has been one of those biddies in past years.

Those people bust their asses for us and our democratic process. And I know a couple of "biddies" who work the polls in your city, Joshua, who could kick your ass (not that they would).

Think of it this way... For example: they started before dawn this morning. I voted at 9ish. People were cranky because they had to wait like 3 minutes for the poll workers to use the bathroom. They had been on duty since 6am with no break. Volunteers, they are.

And on the name recognition thing, Armand. You and I have difficulty (perhaps you don't, I do) remembering the names of all our students sometimes after weeks of knowing them. I have maybe 150 students per semester. I wonder how many people those poll workers see in one day. I have trouble remembering people's names for more than a few seconds, and it often takes me weeks to remember after repeated encounters. There is no real import to my forgetting, if I call someone the wrong name the worst that would happen is I might be seen as rude or absent-minded (usually the latter, given my profession). So, with the weight of the voting process weighing on your shoulders, regardless of age, wouldn't you rather they ask you again to make sure they got your name right? Don't you think in a stressful situation with dozens (hundreds?) of people giving them names, that even some young, spry individual might have to ask twice what your name was?

Finally, I don't know what was the deal with the scissors at your polling place. At my polling place they ripped on perforated lines, not cut. And, by the way, we had a "spry" 30-40ish man doing that job, and he was slow as hell because his finger was wrapped in bandaids. Maybe they should have let the healthy biddy next to him take over.

binky, i'm not sure how i can say that i agree with you completely, and was just chirping to inject some humor, that i haven't already; evidently you assume i ruthlessly make fun of my own grandmother.

which i don't.

because she could kick my ass.

on the other hand, armand obviously has a serious problem with old people. and i think we should see what the biddies are doing after the polls close, and see if they have enough energy left over to open up a can of whup-ass.

I know you aren't trying to malign your grandma or the electoral process. I'm trying to make the point that voting, just like democracy itself, just might benefit from a bit of caution and slowness of process. And that slowness and caution might have nothing to do with the age of the poll workers. Or perhaps, the age of the poll workers is perfectly suited to the process, as they are slow and measured, reassuring and unlikely to spark the wrath of anyone. Maybe they help us treat the process with respect, as we should treat them.

We've all seen the clips of W's speech where he says things would work a lot quicker if the US had a dictator, and the dictator was him. I tell my students that authoritarianism can be highly efficient all the time when they complain about democracy. It's supposed to be slow, obvious, transparent. And it's ours. That's why I like those old ladies from the community. Slow or not, it's one of those things that reminds us that this country still belongs to the citizens, if only we - like the biddies -chose to involve ourselves.

I don't have much of a problem with the slowness. But if it's indictative of problems in the system ... that's a concern. I think the "biddy" question is legit (though I certainly admit that younger workers can be incompetent too). There were 4 people working my polling station. Every voter deals with all four. The 1st of these people was an older lady (actually not that old, I'd say around 60) and she was key to the process. You told her your name, and she looked it up, then you signed next to it and you got that clip-up paper. The thing is that she was reeeeeaaaallly sloppy with names, and she'd often ask people in line - is this you? or is this? or which one are you? And frequently the voters were more or less finding their own names in the book. I'm not saying this is a huge problem. But it would seem to provide an opening for an unscrupulous person to cause some problems.

That said, I do appreciate the "biddies" (one was an older man), and their service on this day.

I've done this myself.

You told her your name, and she looked it up, then you signed next to it and you got that clip-up paper. The thing is that she was reeeeeaaaallly sloppy with names, and she'd often ask people in line - is this you? or is this? or which one are you? And frequently the voters were more or less finding their own names in the book.

There is someone with a similar name in my precinct, and they always end up sorting us out by middle name. I have a rather large and obnoxious signature, so I can look in the book and see my handwriting flaming up off the page. So I point and say, hey, that one's me, not the other one. But you have to sign again, and while there is no handwriting expert on hand, and a forger could make a copy of your signature, he/she would have to be a prodigy to be able to do it on the spot. Then again, in my precinct, the poll workers know a lot of the voters and greet them on entrance. Today there was a 93 year old man in line in front of me, and his greeting reminded me of Cheers (Norm!) or something. Again, the community ties that I am so fond of.