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"FacebookPinterest\n\n Before I start, I would like to address all of you who filled out an absentee ballot prior to this election: You know your vote doesn't count, right? It totally doesn't. Whenever they get an absentee ballot in the mail, they just throw that shit away. Because you took the easy way out. You didn't stand in line with the plebes and jackoffs for three hours to vote when you were supposed to. Noooooo, you tried to weasel your way into voting early just so you could go gallivanting around Spain or have a scheduled splenectomy. That's why your absentee ballot is now burning in an oil drum fire as we speak. I went with my family and voted in person today, because I'm a real American.\n\n They give kids the day off from school here so that they can use local schools as voting stations. This is a serious problem because that means many parents have to bring their kids WITH them (as I did) to go vote, and kids aren't morons. They know that participating in the democratic process is exactly as boring and awful as it sounds. They want nothing to do with it. I told my three-year-old we had to go vote and he recoiled in disgust. Took us half an hour just to get him in the car. Then I told my six-year-old to come with us and, out of the blue, she spews out,\"MITT ROMNEY TELLS LIES.\"\n\n \"Where the hell did you hear that?\" I asked her.\n\n \"From Andrea,\" she said. Andrea was a classmate.\n\n \"Listen, you're wayyyy too young to sound that annoying about politics. Who is this Andrea person? She sounds as if she's been indoctrinated.\"\n\n \"We're going to the doctor?\"\n\n \"I wish.\"\n\n I packed the kids in the car and drove with them to the voting station, which conveniently had a playground right outside of it. There was a strict NO ELECTIONEERING BEYOND THIS POINT SIGN near the school door. But right before it, there was a SHITLOAD of electioneering going on. Party members handed out sample ballots. There were signs for and against gay marriage. (The latter said, \"Don't redefine marriage! Marriage = One man + one woman\" How's that math work for you, Natey Silver?) There were signs for that Green Party lady no one will ever vote for. There was even a Gary Johnson sign. Good ol' Gary. I wonder why he never caught on. He likes weed.\n\n My wife and daughter went to vote first while I hung with my two younger kids at the playground. My daughter thought she was going to get to actually cast a ballot, so I had to correct her before she left.\n\n \"You gotta be eighteen to vote,\" I said.\n\n \"But that's not fair!\" she yelled.\n\n \"That's true. But I promise you, it ain't as fun as it sounds.\" I promised her that if MTV still ran one of those pointless CHOOSE OR LOSE youth polls that no one gives a shit about, she could vote in it.\n\n My wife voted, then we switched places and I walked into the school on my own, where there was a small sign that said WELCOME VOTERS. ENJOY OUR BAKE SALE. Under the sign was a small table and a handful of kids selling crumb cake and brownies for fifty cents each, which was a bargain. Your local coffee shop charges three bucks each for that shit. There should be bake sales every day. The line for the bake sale was separate from the voting line and I had to choose between voting faster and getting crumb cake. I got the crumb cake and lost my place.\n\n There was another sign as you walked into the main voting area that instructed voters to turn off cell phones, even though no one did. In fact, if you go to Tumblr right now, half the posts are just pictures of shitheads who took a photo of their ballot after casting it. COOKIE FOR YOU, TUMBLR IDIOT.\n\n I didn't need an ID to vote in my state. All they required was for me to verify my address and date of birth, like the Verizon operator does whenever I forget my password, which is always. And while I'm against laws that restrict people's ability to vote, it does feel odd that you don't have to flash a license or anything to cast your ballot. Someone could have dressed up as me and then simply recited my address and date of birth and then stolen my vote, then replicated the feat 700 times without the volunteers noticing and completely changed the outcome of the election. Don't tell me it couldn't happen. Those volunteers are old and can't see well.\n\n They handed me a receipt to sign and a voter access card and then I stood in a second line to go to my booth. To say that it was a booth would be a lie, actually. All the Diebold machines were out in the open, so everyone could see everyone. This was bullshit. I wanted a real booth so that I could vote in secret AND pull my pants down to masturbate. The line formed in front of a table manned by two boys who couldn't have been more than fourteen. One of them was wearing a Patriots sweatshirt even though I don't live in New England. That kid is a fucking frontrunner and will grow up to be a prick. One of the old ladies yelled at them to give her more access cards. They finally heard on her on fifteenth attempt.\n\n A bearded dude escorted me to my machine, like an usher taking you to your pew at a wedding. He told me to stick my card in the machine and vote away, and so I did. I said it before and I'll say it again: voting is a total letdown. You spend two years listening to these candidates and pundits piss and moan. And for your efforts, you tap a screen once and it's over. Even The Dark Knight Rises wasn't this disappointing.\n\n I got to the undercard of my ballot and there were certain choices that didn't appear on the sample ballot one of the volunteers outside gave to me. The machine offered choices for the Board of Education and I had no idea who any of the people were. They didn't list party affiliation either, so you couldn't go by that. I thought about voting for the first people listed, but then I thought that maybe those people were evil and stepped on puppies to get that top billing on the ballot. So I thought about voting for the second person listed and then I wondered if those people were incompetents who couldn't even get their name at the top of a ballot. What kind of asshat runs for Board of Ed anyway? I abstained. You shouldn't ALWAYS vote. Not if you're utterly clueless about every facet of the choice. Sorry, Morris Panner. You'll have to find votes elsewhere.\n\n I got to the referendums section of the ballot and the thing turned into the SAT. It was clear that people had clawed each other's eyes out to phrase each question the way their special interest group wanted it phrased. As a result, I was confronted with muddled dogshit like this:\n\n Changes the point at which an elected official charged with certain crimes is automatically suspended or removed from office. Under existing law, an elected official who is convicted or pleads no contest is suspended and is removed only when the conviction becomes final. Under the amended law, an elected official is suspended when found guilty and is removed when the conviction becomes final or when the elected official pleads guilty or no contest. \n\n It took me an hour to figure out what the question meant. I began to fear that I was being timed and that a monitor would come over to tell me that I had failed and was being deported. Voting is like holding a fantasy draft. The first round (voting for the President) is crazy awesome. The latter rounds, when you have to sift through all the horrible wideouts (or Board of Ed members) leaves you feeling tired and wanting to leave. I finished up my ballot and voted against congressional redistricting (I KNOW WHAT YOU GERRYMANDERERS ARE UP TO), then bought another crumb cake and bolted for the door.\n\n Like most of you, I live in one of those states that's already in the bag for one candidate, which means that the vote I casted today is supposedly meaningless. This is bullshit, of course. The whole reason states like mine aren't battleground states is because it's assumed we WILLvote, and that those votes will count and lead to a decisive outcome. We'll deal with traffic, and annoying kids, and Pats fan volunteers if we have to, because that's what we do. If we all just stayed home, then suddenly that state wouldn't be in the bag. It would be a toss-up, and then we'd have to settle the vote using pole-as and hand grenades. So even the meaningless votes matter, because all votes matter one way or another. If not to the general outcome, then at least to your inflated sense of citizenship and self-importance. Seriously though, next year I'm voting by mail, even it does go right into the hobo bonfire."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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