{"id":518,"date":"2004-01-24T15:38:20","date_gmt":"2004-01-24T20:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/01\/exercising_the_franchise\/"},"modified":"2004-01-24T15:38:20","modified_gmt":"2004-01-24T20:38:20","slug":"exercising_the_franchise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/01\/exercising_the_franchise\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercising the Franchise"},"content":{"rendered":"

The national media is currently focused on New Hampshire, awaiting Tuesday’s primary. But here in Tennessee the primary action is already on. And, from what I saw yesterday, the contest could get hot and heavy.
\nLast primary I waited until election day evening to vote. Big mistake. Thanks to the long lines, it took me at least 45 minutes to get through. So yesterday I decided to do the cool thing and vote early.
\nArmed with voter registration card in hand, I proceeded to the Down Town West shopping center. I wasn’t sure exactly where the precinct was, bit there were ample “vote here” and candidate campaign signs to guide me.
\nI swung open the front door and was greeted by a 12-15 member gray brigade of election volunteers, each manning a designated station. A puffy-haired woman at the front table boldly waved me over, as if she had discovered an opening for me through the mayhem. I was the only voter in the room.
\nAfter proving that I could indeed sign my name three times, I was directed to a booth. The booth attendant glanced at my form as if he’d never seen one before, then motioned me inside the hood. I glanced at the ballot panel and waited for its display lights to awake up. And I waited for the lights. And I heard the booth guru on the other side muttering something about a district. And I waited some more. More muttering.
\nFinally, after waiting almost a minute in my curtained world, the board lit up. Well, not exactly. Turns out I only had two races to vote on–no wonder it took so long.
\nThe first decision, Democratic presidential preference, was straightforward: no mystery there<\/a>.
\nThen I discovered I was also supposed to vote in a school board district contest–between two contestants I didn’t know a thing about. What to do? Flip a coin? Alphabetical order?
\nI decided to select based on name recognition. I recalled seeing a sign for candidate A at a house along my jogging route. But then I remembered I had just received a brochure from candidate B in the mail–though I had not read it. Yard sign or mailing? I went with the latter. Isn’t democracy great?
\nAfter rechecking the screen twice (I always fear I’ll accidentally select the wrong candidate) I hit “Vote” and prepared to exit the booth. But the booth keeper was still discussing about something behind the control box. I waited for him to emerge to ensure my selection had registered–every vote counts!–then headed toward the door.
\nI glanced back as I exited–still no voters there. But the 12 election assistants seemed to be busily working on something or other at their posts. I wonder what they do all day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The national media is currently focused on New Hampshire, awaiting Tuesday’s primary. But here in Tennessee the primary action is already on. And, from what I saw yesterday, the contest could get hot and heavy. Last primary I waited until election day evening to vote. Big mistake. Thanks to the long lines, it took me […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}