Voting Quirks on Jeff & Mindy's Site

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Voting Quirks

posted on Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 10:18 pm

Why oh why do we make voting difficult when we strive to get all possible Americans to exercise their vote?

We went tonight to one of Nashville's early voting locations. Early voting- supposed to save time and be a convenience. I think not. We walked into the Edmonson Library and the line was wrapped around half the inside and the back of the line was at the door. The official I spoke to said the line took about an hour. What he didn't tell me is that the there were 2 lines. One to sign up, then you got a piece of paper that you signed, showed your registration card, and then walked to line number two where you stood to wait to vote. Okay, why two lines? It didn't make sense to me, it only caused a lot of confusion.

It took about two hours. I had both my kids. Luckily Jeff came along after 30 minutes and helped watch the kids while we stood in line. Voting with my one year old? Let's just say I voted for the important issues and skipped the amendments that were too wordy and I couldn't read easily. I had received a practice ballot in the mail, and even read it, but when you get to the booth, you forget. Or at least I did.

And let's talk about the absolutely ridiculously complicated language that one has to read in order to vote on an Amendment. What can't it be simple instead of so confusing. Can we not simplify it just a bit for the common person who doesn't understand the jargon of law? A brief summary that makes sense and doesn't take 10 minutes to read.

And we wonder why more Americans don't vote? It's not rocket science, people!!

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