Raise a Ruckus
Well, as long as I’m a conservative in a “blue state”, I might as well raise a ruckus on election day, right? As it turns out, I raised a bit more of a ruckus than I intended.
After we dropped off Thing One at school this morning, Thing Two and I got a couple of things at Safeway, then stopped off to vote. Sounds like no big deal, right? Just pull up, park, go into the old couple’s garage, vote, and go home. Not exactly brain surgery. Well….
The first thing I saw as I walked up to the house to vote was that the next-door neighbors had three political signs right in their driveway! Now, you may think this sounds like nothing, but here in CA, it’s illegal to have any kind of politcal propaganda within a certain area around the polling place. The next-door driveway is well within that area.
When I entered the garage (with uncapped pen in hand, by the way), I asked about the signs. Apparently, I was the fourth or fifth person to ask about them, so the one lady said that she would call the inspector. She thought they should just take the signs down, but the man insisted that they couldn’t b/c the signs were on private property. Of course, both the people who live in that house were at work, so they couldn’t be told to take them down.
After we kvetched about the signs for a bit, I went to go sign the sign-in form with my pen, and the man nearly yanked it away from me. He insisted that I had to sign with the “non-erasable pencil”. I hereupon started kicking myself b/c I had forgotten to bring an eraser with me for the “Yes, it IS erasable; they lied to you” demonstration. We went back & forth for a long time about how I refused to sign my name with something that could be erased b/c I didn’t want someone to be able to erase my name and have someone else vote again as me. The man was really angry about it. I made a huge effort to be really polite, but firm about it. I told him that I understood that he was just obeying what he had been told, what the rule was, but that the rule was wrong. He finally let me do it, but he was less than thrilled about it.
When I went out to my car, the man was standing in his driveway, writing something down on a piece of paper (using a “non-erasable pencil”). At first glance, I panicked a bit, thinking he was writing down my license plate number (pretty dumb thought, considering he had the book, so he knew my name & address). When I looked again, I realized he was copying down what the signs said so that they could call and report the violation.
Hubby’s probably voting right this very minute, and I’m sure he remembered to take his eraser with him. Can’t wait to hear the story.
Oh, and after I got home, I looked up the appropriate number and called to report the violation with the signs. I’m sure they didn’t take them down, but I really do hope the people who put them up get socked with a hefty fine. I doubt they will, though. Sigh.
Later, I was chatting with a dad from Thing Two’s art class, and he couldn’t believe that here in America (he’s from a small village in Germany), they don’t ask for picture ID when you go to vote. Think about it. This German guy, if he knew my address and hubby’s name, could have gone to our polling place, given our address, said he was hubby (with our Mexican last name) and voted in his place. He was astounded.
