I went into my polling place today, signed in all the right places, and then stepped into the booth as my 156-year-old polling instructor fiddled with the settings on the side. The settings that, purportedly, go from D to R depending on whether you’re registered to vote as a Democrat or Republican in the primaries.
Once in the booth, I kerchunked the red lever to the right to begin voting. Only my little black markers wouldn’t budge next to my chosen candidate. Wouldn’t – freaking – lemme just – maybe if I – ARGH. But the Republican levers worked fine, so it wasn’t that I was nudging them wrong. So I opened the curtain.
Me: “I can’t flip the levers for my candidates, but I can flip the Republican ones.”
156-year-old I’m going to call Rose: “You have to push them down.”
Me: “I know.”
Totally uninvolved but pushy matriarch in line who thinks I’m a dumb youngster unaware of the voting process, who I’ll dub MABEL: “You can only vote for ONE, sweetie, ONE party.”
Me: ignores her.
Rose: “Gotta vote your party.”
Me: “I get that. I’m trying to say that the Rep levers work, but the Dem ones don’t.”
Mabel: “Are you registered Republican?”
Me: “NO, I’m aware of how it works, I’m a registered Democrat and I’m trying to vote that way.”
Rose: “Then don’t push the Republican ones.”
Me: “I understand. Could you please check?”
What ensued then was four different “instructors” looking at the machine and realizing that Rose had set the machine to record a Republican vote.
Vaguely Irish middle-aged man who I will name Malachy: “Well, you’ve already moved the red lever, see, so now you’ve lost the vote.”
Me: “I didn’t lose the vote. She incorrectly deployed the machine. You’re saying, what, I can’t vote today?”
Malachy: “Have to vote on a paper ballot.”
It took them another ten minutes to locate an envelope that I was meant to fill out. They gave it to me and seemed surprised when I pointed out, after filling in my information, that there was no ACTUAL BALLOT IN IT.
Malachy: “Well, that’s what we have.”
Finally, another official brought me a ballot and I inked in my votes and gave it back to them. Only when I left did I realize that Rose hadn’t even signed the AFFIDAVIT on the ballot that says an official received my envelope.
So I may not have voted at all today because my voting officials were inept. And no one even took a moment to apologize to me – they simply kept saying that I’d “lost” the vote because I’d taken for granted that when I stepped in and pushed the lever to the voting position, my party affiliation had been correctly noted. So I’m going to the Election Board website and look to see if they need workers or volunteers for the November elections, because that shit was just bananas.
Somewhere, my dad is laughing into his breakfast that I was practically being coerced to vote Republican.