I Voted!

With all the news about voting machine craziness it's kind of comforting to be in backwards 'ole Oklahoma, where we've been using nice big easy-to-read and easy-to-mark optical ballots pretty much since I was old enough to vote. You sign in, get your ballot and a big fat marker, vote (we fill in the arrows on ours), and feed it to the machine. If the machine accepts it, it makes a happy little beep and your're done. If not, it spits it back out at you, you sign a "spoiled ballot" form, feed your old ballot to the shredder, and get a new one from the helpful voting attendant. It's the same ballot in every precinct in the state and most of the newspapers print copies of it weeks in advance of the election. Partial ballots are just fine, so if you're lazy like I was this year and didn't research things like renewing judicial appointments you just leave that part blank. It's simple and secure and just about foolproof and I hope they stay with this system for a long, long time. About the only improvements I'd like to see would be some way to verify what the machine thinks your vote was on the spot, a tear-off ballot number so you can verify your vote online later if you like, and a requirement to show a photo ID when you vote. There was no ID check and I could have given just about any name I knew would be on the roll and voted that name.

So Southern Man encourages all readers to get out today and vote for the party and / or candidates of your choice. If you don't vote, as far as I'm concerned you give up the right to gripe about the outcome. But I voted - and I'll probably gripe about the outcome, so just stay tuned!

"Either we win or they cheated" - attributed to Nancy Pelosi, who, God willing, will not be the next Speaker of the House.