{"id":3925,"date":"2014-11-04T15:23:36","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T22:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=3925"},"modified":"2014-11-04T15:23:36","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T22:23:36","slug":"i-voted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=3925","title":{"rendered":"I voted!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a choice today of standing in line for several hours or \u2013 for the first time ever \u2013 voting on that official ballot-y thing they sent me in the mail (as long as I then dropped it off by 7 pm tonight).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Due to a pressing appointment to look at 50% off Halloween Candy at Walmart, which just so happens to be on the other side of the street from the ballot drop-off site, I thought, \u201cMeh.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Why not?!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s do it to it.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why I\u2019ve never voted this way before, choosing instead to stand in line for umpteen hours.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>The whole marking-your-answers-on-a-piece-of-paper-and-then-mailing-it-in always seemed better suited for a Johnny Carson Carnac the Magnificent skit.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Or like the whole mess might be found moldering in a cardboard box fifty years from now during a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d expos\u00e9.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve gotta tell ya, someone clearly put some thought into this process.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>And I was pleasantly surprised.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It reminded me of a Scan Tron test combined with an Ikea furniture assembly project.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>See?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Pleasant and surprising.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

First off, before you begin, you\u2019ve got like twenty or so \u201cparts\u201d you should lay out on the table so you can make sure you have all of the twenty or so parts on the table before you begin.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Otherwise, you\u2019re dead in the water and\/or someone has clearly stolen your identity so you should probably go get in line at the polling place now and call your credit card company on the way over.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Next, you have to fill the ballot out.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>This year\u2019s ballot had a super catchy \u201cMake the Connection\u201d theme wherein you had to connect the back of the arrow to the front of the arrow beside each person\/issue for which you were voting \u201cyes.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The instructions didn\u2019t say what to use, though, to make the connection.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>A #2 Pencil seemed a little wishy-washy and prone to error,\u00a0so I used a hot glue gun.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I wanted the tally folks sitting underground in the bunker to see I was really committed to my choices.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As an interesting side note, I’d like to mention here\u00a0that many of the ballot questions appeared to have been written by the Unemployment Office folks who always seem to make the questions (inadvertently on purpose?) super confusing.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Like they want you to accidentally give up and leave an unfinished ballot craft project all over your kitchen table because you simply didn\u2019t understand their circuitous rhetoric.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So it was a good thing the form also \u201ctranslated\u201d the questions into a dumb-dumb version, something along the lines of: <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Are you voting \u2018for\u2019 or are you voting \u2018against\u2019 this issue, ya moron?!?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Uhhhh\u2026.wait.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>What?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Let me read it again.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And \u2018yes\u2019 means for and \u2018no\u2019 means against, right?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And left is right and right is wrong.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Tell me about the rabbits, George.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Then, after you\u2019ve burnt the crap out of your fingers with your hot glue gun, you\u2019ve gotta sign the whole mess using the full (and oh so tedious) legal name you signed all your mortgage documents with <\/span>and don\u2019t think for a SECOND that they won\u2019t verify your signature using the weird little box o\u2019signatures at the bank.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>\u2018Cause they will.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Finally\u2026and this is the BEST part because it makes you feel like a spy who has to keep the information out of the hands of the Russians\u2026you slip your hot-glued ballot into the \u201cSecrecy Sleeve.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>OooOOOOOHHHhhhh.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Awesome!!!\u00a0 SEEEEECRECY SLEEEEEEVE!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You pop the whole thing into an envelope with flaps and folds and barcodes visible and hand it out your car window to some random chick who\u2019s pitching all the envelopes into a dumpster looking device.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that assignment\u2019s done.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>I\u2019m pretty sure I got an \u201cA\u201d on it.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Either way, the teacher gave me a sticker for my efforts so it\u2019s all good.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a choice today of standing in line for several hours or \u2013 for the first time ever \u2013 voting on that official ballot-y thing they sent me in the mail (as long as I then dropped it off by 7 pm tonight). Due to a pressing appointment to look at 50% off Halloween […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[286,285,156,288,287],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3925"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3933,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925\/revisions\/3933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}