Apparently we are a voter identification state in Virginia. I had to fish around in my wallet to find my driver’s license. I am in favor of that requirement. If you don’t have time in your busy day to have a photo ID, I suspect that you might be dead, or incapacitated, or really out of it.

You need ID for everything else, from boarding an airplane to buying a beer, so I figure it just isn’t that big a deal. I hear the rhetoric about how this seriously imposes on the right of minorities and the aged, the shut-ins and assorted other categories of citizens to exercise their franchise, but the possibility of fraud is enough that a little requirement of having to prove who you are shouldn’t be a show stopper.

Election Day and you just thought of it? Come on.

The Supremes decided on the basic constitutionality of voter ID on ideological lines, of course, but one of the key statistics they found relevant about the states of the Old Confederacy was that minority voters (we are all minority voters now, BTW) were voting in percentages that exceeded that of the former majority ethnic groups.

Enough about voter nullification. Every fraudulent ballot (and I am convinced there are many- voter fraud has a long and dishonorable history where people are not watching) nullifies mine. So screw it. Produce a photo ID or the documentation that proves you are who you say you are or stay home.

I walked over to the polling station with Jane, the lady who bought my little efficiency years ago. She is trapped by the specter of retirement and the crappy economy, and the inability to dump the place and get something bigger in a place that is not as crazy as it is here. I was walking over to get the Franchise thing out of the way. She is a poll greeter, and will be out in the chill for the day, 0600 to 1900.

Thank goodness it was not a cold as it was yesterday down at the farm. Jane dropped off to stand with a fellow named Steve, whose party affiliation based on his hoodie and t-shirt.

Someone came up the walk and through the fence- another resident of Big Pink, I could tell- and bade them farewell and walked down to the back door of the Culpeper Gardens Senior Center, which is the site of our voting precinct in Arlington Forest. I checked the iPad for the time- five minutes to go and first in line. There were perhaps ten of us in line there, and peering in through the wired safety glass portal of the steel door I could see some of the residents of the assisted living facility lined up in the warmth of the building.

I called off the minutes and those of us in line talked about whether the stock market was going to set another record today. The consensus was that it would, and it didn’t matter because it was a bubble and we were all going to get screwed. The young man two back announced that with the prospect of Sequester, he had pulled everything out of the market and put it in FDIC-covered securities.

“You missed the profits we accumulated over the last six months,” I said.

He frowned. “True, but you are probably going to lose a third or more before the bubble pops and this is done.”

“Yeah, we are hosed. Only the House wins in this game. It’s rigged.”

The line gave a collective shrug and looking back into the bright lights of the Senior Center, I saw a poll worker headed for the door. I should have known which side it opened, but the nice man probably couldn’t see us lined up in the gloom and nearly knocked me over as he hit the crash bar on his side of the door and flung it open into the darkness.

“Polls are open,” he said.

I thanked him for his service and walked across the shuffleboard triangles set into the linoleum tiles of the floor. Two older gentlemen were seated at the registrar’s table. I got the one who was not Vietnamese, based on his nametag. I produced my driver’s license and he blinked for a while at the little computer screen that sat upright on the table in front of him.

“How many times do you wish to vote?” he asked. I looked back suspiciously. “A joke, citizen.”

The last time I volunteered at the polls, we had thick ledger books and rulers to confirm identities. I felt a vague sense of unease about the technology. Once ballots are nothing but digits, where is the accountability? Are we to trust the computer mastery demonstrated by a government that cannot seem to set up a web portal for health care, or provide any security for protected personal information?

I don’t know. You do what you have to do. The man peered at my license and asked me to state my full legal name, which I remembered, and my address, which I needed to think about. I got it correct on the second try, and he handed me back my ID and a blue post card that signified my eligibility to execute an electronic ballot.

I was first to the machines- and it took a few minutes to wake up one up so that it displayed the electronic menu of the ballot.

It was pretty slick, if it actually recorded anything, and if the touch screen actually reflected what was entered into the database. I voted the ticket as straight as I could, though of course my choices included the only openly Gay County Councilman.

The only question I did not have an answer to was the matter of the non-partisan school board position, with the individual who was running up-opposed, I voted for myself on the write-in menu, thinking there might be an outside shot at picking up a part-time job. Then I mashed the last button on the screen, the large red box that said: “VOTE.”

It blinked off, and thanked me, so I guess I did. I got my circular “I voted in Arlington” sticker with the words wrapped around a little American flag from the volunteer. I peeled it off the backing and stuck it on the iPad and walked back out into the darkness.

Here are the early returns from Arlington: since I was first to vote in the precinct, I knew that for at least that moment, my slate of idiots was ahead.

VOTE.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303