Voting Day

We were the eighth and ninth voters at our polling place this morning, which means the cranky old guy in charge of the ballot box still had a full roll of "I Voted" stickers. We have a new voting system here, having gone from punch cards to what looks like optical scan. We don't, however, get to feed our own ballots into the scanner. That would make me feel more in control, although clearly that wouldn't be true. I watched HBO's Hacking Democracy on Thursday. It's bone-chilling in that Michael Moore way. You expect the filmmakers are exaggerating a little bit to make a point, but it doesn't change how fucked up the reality of the situation is. I'm usually not one for conspiracy theories, but when there are real stakes (and if you're in the political power and money business, what else is there) why wouldn't you lie and cheat to win? On the other hand, I voted with one of thoese scented markers. Licorice, yum.

The elections here are less than sexy. We know Arnold and Feinstein are going to win. Our Congressman is running against someone who doesn't have a phone. So I wonder how that will turn out. There are some interesting ballot props though, which make it worthwhile to get up early. Statewide there is parental consent for abortion and a new tax on California-produced gas that would pay for research into alternative fuel. The latter is interesting in that it's funded by a guy with reams of money invested in alternative energy research. Mostly, he funded the campaign to pass it. So that's fun. Locally we're voting on whether or to switch power providers, allow a Target to be built in town and consider choice voting (which I don't really understand).

Like everyone else, I'm more interested in what comes tonight, the control of the House, Senate. No one in the media seems to think Lola's Congressional candidate has a chance, but neither has anyone conducted a poll to prove that.