Casting Call

I've been poring over the California primary returns for the last week looking for my vote. It's not there. And I'm waiting for a promised call from controversial and very nice Assistant Registrar of Voters for San Diego County Michael Vu. 

Confusion loves momentum. Seemingly casual blunders are really just foot soldiers looking to bring on the madness. And so it was that events conspired against my polling station, leading me to cast an illegitimate write-in vote for Barack Obama on the Green Party ballot. I wasn't pranking around in the polling booth looking for a good story to tell when this happened – I intended to cast my primary vote for Obama as a registered member of the Democratic Party. Little things went wrong until poll workers and I were officially irregular.

I have written a one act play about this experience and am now casting performers. A word of special thanks to Michael Vu whose surprise guest appearance transformed this from boring voting story to personal political drama.

Read full article

The Morning After the Democracy Party

Having been working at the polling station at Escondido's Pioneer Elementary School from 5:30 a.m. until we left to turn in our ballots at 9:30 p.m., I can attest that yesterday was certainly an Election Day. On the other hand, the exhaustion and soreness this morning all point to a highly successful Mardi Gras celebration.

Mind-numbing paper counts and the stickers, stickers, stickers attitude lead to morning-after effects very similar to the more traditional Mardi Gras activities.

The worst part of the day was putting this news junkie into a news blackout zone for most of Super Tuesday. The TV was turned off. There were no publications around that might politicize the environment. The occasional news update message to the Blackberry served as more of a tease than to satisfy any actual cravings for good, hard news, and small doses of KPBS coverage over the car radio while running errands on my breaks were all I had to keep from going into complete withdrawal. 

From my standpoint, Touchscreen Inspector for a precinct that only had one electronic ballot cast, the election went smooth.

Read full article

Super Lost

Except while living in Sherman Heights for a year, my polling place for the last few elections has been just down the street in a Methodist Church that used to be a La Jolla train station.  A lovely place to vote – if you're on their list of registered voters. I wasn't.  

I venture a few blocks over to a multimillion dollar Birdrock garage on the advice of the poll worker. Everybody is Super nice, but I'm not on the white, pink or blue list here either.  I am offered a provisional ballot for the second time and refuse again – I feel like provisional ballots usually end up in the same place as letters to Santa. Part of me suspects there is a conspiracy afoot – but experience tells me these things are usually my fault.

I'm home now and have torn apart my room – my ballot mailer has been found and it looks like I'll be headed to a third polling place at the bottom of Super posh Mount Soledad to cast my vote for Obama, for 92, against 93, for 94 and 95, against 96, for 97. But right now it's time to go contribute to the economy.