BIG NEWS: The sample print copy of my new book has arrived and it looks great. Now, after one possible change, my designer team can go ahead and do the e-book formatting. The title, as I've mentioned before, is New Yorkers: A Feisty People Who Will Unsettle, Madden, Amuse and Astonish You. Once the e-book formatting is done, I can show the front cover, which is exciting and unique, and the back cover with my blurb. And I can order ARCs (advance review copies) in hopes of getting early, pre-pub reviews.
Horrors of Voting
I’m a good citizen, I
vote. Usually. Once I was rained out. And occasionally there is an off-year
election where nothing but judges are on the ballot. I don’t vote for judges, since I know nothing
about them. Also, a lawyer friend tells
me that, regarding judges, the real selection of candidates is done beforehand
by insiders, who then present the results on the ballot.
Though I don’t mean to turn this blog into a political
platform, I have to confess that this year I’m more involved than usually in
elections Here in New York, a very
Democratic city, the names of Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg are flying
around like crazy, with the latest results of polls in Iowa being constantly
announced. These four top the polls,
with frequent shifts among them, and other candidates trailing far behind this
stellar quartet. Undecided, I ignore the
news, but am determined to vote. The free,
supposedly nonpartisan Voter Guide that comes to me in the mail doesn’t mention
the Democrats’ stellar quartet (an indicator that I should have heeded), but it
does mention candidates for public advocate, an office that I should pay
attention to, but haven’t. Also
mentioned, and in detail, are five local proposals regarding such issues as
authorizing “ranked choice voting” in elections, expanding the Civilian
Complaint Review Board, and creating a “rainy day” fund for unforeseen future
emergencies.
Announced with great fanfare this year is early voting in
New York State. You don’t have to vote
on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5. If
that is inconvenient – maybe an anticipated hurricane, or Aunt Minnie from
Milwaukee is visiting – you can vote, from October 25 on, at alternative sites
in your district. This sounded good to
me, so I went to the Internet to learn my district’s alternative site. It turned out to be a school at a distant
location from my building, much farther away than my regular voting site on
Hudson Street. So struck the first sour
note: for me, early voting was flat-out a fiasco!
When Tuesday, November 5, arrived, I had my day carefully
planned, with errands on Hudson Street both prior to voting at P.S. 3 and
afterward. At 10 a.m. off I went, jaunty
as can be, clutching a small card giving my assembly and election district
numbers, so I could avoid a long line at the info table and go directly to my
districts’ table and pick up a ballot and instructions for using the voting
machines. Outside P.S. 3 I found no lines, no commotion,
nothing. Inside two heavy doors I did
indeed bypass the info table and, entering
the school gym, found my table quickly – the only one with a line. And a line that moved very slowly.
Only when my turn came did I discover why. As always, you were required to write your
signature on a form they give you, but this time it was different, for the
system has gone high tech. Instead of
putting pen to paper, you have to put plastic stick to screen. Yes, just like in some doctors’ offices, you
had to navigate this stick on the screen, something I have always had trouble
with. I managed to get a “C” down, but
adding my last name was impossible; no matter how I moved the stick, pressing
firmly or pressing lightly, it made no mark whatsoever. “Try the other end,” the volunteer poll worker said.
I did: same result. “Try your
finger,” she said. I did, and at first
got nothing. Then, finally, I made a
wiggly mark on the screen. So with great
effort, and many failings, I finally managed to slowly write my complete last
name. But what I saw on the screen was a
series of wiggly lines, the poorest conceivable excuse for a signature.
After that it went fairly smoothly. I took my ballot to a so-called “privacy
booth,” a small platform with a wall on three sides where, standing, you can scan the ballot and instructions and
vote, with no one able to see what you’re doing. Not quite a booth, perhaps, but far superior
to the old booth where you closed a curtain and had only so much time for
voting. Here, you can take all the time
you need, with no one in line behind you, waiting for you to push the
curtain back and emerge.
So at last I voted.
Or at least, marked my ballot, filling in the little oval on the lines
where the name of each of my selections appeared. But I found only the candidates for public
advocate and the five ballot proposals.
Assured that I had the complete one-page ballot, I realized at last that
the candidates for higher office wouldn’t appear on a ballot before the
primaries next spring. Idiot!
I told myself, this is still 2019. They aren’t
up for office until 2020. Only
dedicated citizens concerned about such trivia as the public advocate and the
five ballot proposals would turn out.
And sure enough, the gym turned voting site was sparsely populated, with
the volunteer poll workers outnumbering the voters.
So I marked the ballot.
For public advocate, there were three choices, each accompanied by a
photo: the Democratic incumbent, an African American male with a hearty grin;
the Republican, a bearded white man, quite dignified; and way over to one side,
the lonely Libertarian, a clean-shaven white man with a slightly forced smile. With the possible exception of the Democrat, I
had never heard of any of them. Though
without a firm conviction, I tilted toward the Democrat, who looked quite
jolly. The Republican listed as his
three top issues
- Stopping the de Blasio agenda
- Stopping the de Blasio agenda
- Stopping the de Blasio agenda
Which was clear enough. But I’m not too hostile to our current mayor,
under whose leadership a number of good measures have been passed. So this candidate didn’t tempt me. As for the Libertarian, his announced issues
sounded valid enough, but I have mixed feelings about Libertarians, and their
total rejection of government regulation.
I agree with them in not wanting the government to tell me what foods
and what supplements I can consume, or whom I can sleep with or marry. But I also want my Social Security and
Medicare, and have seen what havoc a lack of regulation can wreak on Wall
Street, not to mention the misdeeds of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma. So I went with the Democratic incumbent.
My ballot marked, I went to a scanner, a mysterious machine
into whose narrow slit of a mouth you feed your ballot.
If you do it right, a message appears on a screen, indicating that your
vote has been cast. Then, as I was
leaving, another poll worker gave me a stick-um badge to put on my jacket,
announcing I VOTED. I stuck it on, feeling proud and
patriotic. Only later, given the minor
and very local issues at stake, as witnessed by the light turnout, did I
realize that, for some, it probably labeled me a nerd and a fanatic. So ended my voting adventure, harassed by
shameful ignorance and tech.
Coming soon: Maybe "The Jungle and Me" -- my adventures and misadventures in Central America. And maybe something else, like a repeat with variations of "Five Things I Cannot Do Without."
© 2019 Clifford Browder
Coming soon: Maybe "The Jungle and Me" -- my adventures and misadventures in Central America. And maybe something else, like a repeat with variations of "Five Things I Cannot Do Without."
© 2019 Clifford Browder
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