I was reluctant to vote Nov. 5 because of the Bush/Gore debacle two years ago, when my vote for Al Gore was wasted or ignored. But I voted anyway, refusing to let the past adversely affect the present. I shouldn’t have bothered. When it came time to insert my ballot into the scanner that was supposed to check for undervotes or overvotes, I was told that the machine had suddenly gone on the blink, so my ballot went unscanned.
Then the judge said, “Put your ballot in the box,” indicating the same refrigerator-size box that has always stood on the floor of my polling place, a box that used to have a slot on the top into which the voters put their ballots.
But this time the slot, if it was still there, would have been useless because the judge swung open the door of the unlocked box and told me to put my ballot on the shelf.
After I did so, she nonchalantly closed the door without locking it. I felt that I might as well have put my ballot in the wastebasket.
I don’t know if the polling-place honchos were guilty of hanky-panky or “merely” gross negligence. Either way, I’m sorry I voted. What a waste of time.
