All Hallow's Eve

I went and voted tonight; to avoid Trick or Treaters that may or may not have come to my front door. I don't have the money to shell out candy to these Munchkin Thieves.

I got in line at 6:11 and entered the doors at 8:05. The ballot was 5 pages long, front and back, and it took me about 14 minutes to fill it out. However, I love the fact that it is a paper ballot ... something that can be recounted. Plus, it was very interesting that this new system prints out the ballot when you sign in. They were very organized. Three people checking you in on the computers and there were 25-30 booths. The only reason the lines were long was because the ballot had just too much on it, small print, and written in three languages.

It may be very undemocratic of me, but I still say that if you vote in this country, you should speak and read English. I truly believe that a ballot should be written only in one language. It was written in English, Spanish and Creole. As for all the amendments and charter changes, anything that would cost money, I voted against. I don't want my taxes to go up and we cannot afford it. I also hate these multi-million dollar "studies" that community leaders like to spend money on. You either need something or you don't.

Of course, I also voted against changing the State Constitution regarding same-sex unions/marriages. I didn't vote for any Judges, since I could find nothing on them and there was no campaign literature available online nor at the poll. I did not vote for the Mayor's older brother for Sheriff (I felt it was a conflict of interest) and after talking with both candidates for School Board member, while waiting in line, chose the man over the woman, mainly because the woman kept looking at my feet and would not look me in the eye.

Local Political Ads

It is obvious that money is an issue this election season, for local politics. I guess it sort of snuck up on them. The polls here in Broward County have been open since Monday and I'm just now getting my first mail flyers (not counting the presidential cards and letters).

I'm quite underwhelmed.

Example: Some guy running for a School Board position. He is the only one that I've gotten anything about. The heavy paper advertisement had so many people on it, you couldn't tell who was running. I ended up going to his website to see which guy it was.

His qualifications are questionable. His parents were school teachers in Broward County. Is that a good thing? He is also an engineer. He has been on the Hollywood Development Review Board since 2004. He thinks that is a good thing? He has one 2-year-old child, so he has no current educational reason to be on the board. Harvard degree in Engineering seems better suited to what he is doing now, but considering the state of things here in Hollywood, it doesn't look like he knows what he is doing.

I think I'm know what I'm going to do. Vote a strict party ticket and let the population that has to deal with everything else, vote for everything else.

I was going to vote today, however ...

Early on, I had decided to vote early and thought, I would get it out of the way and do it the first day, however ... I heard that there were first day voting machine problems and lines at some polling places.

To top it off, I looked at my sample ballot that came in two weeks ago, and to my horror, the ballot is a big as a Harry Potter book with mumbo jumbo Constitutional amendments, Broward County Charter amendments and elections for people that I assume have no campaigning budgets, because just as in the primary, I have not received a single ad in the mail.

Will try and find some information on the questions that are not worded as questions and vote a solid Democratic ticket.

I guess I'll vote on Thursday. I have that tree coming down tomorrow and I'm working on the raised beds in the backyard. Wednesday, my friends from Naperville, IL will be coming for the day. That leaves Thursday as the earliest to perform my civic duty.

News came on tonight that Barack's grandmother is gravely ill. Sounds like hospice. My thoughts are with him.