My voting experience

Today’s the day. I voted. Now, I haven’t voted in 8 years. If you know me, then you know WHY I haven’t voted in 8 years. But that’s a story for another day. The funny thing is, when I used to vote, 8 years ago and beyond, I was a Republican. Hee hee hee…I know, it’s funny!

First, some background. 8 ½ years ago when I got my driver's license changed to my married name, I was still in the accounting field. I had no reason to sign my name any other way but legibly. So let’s fast forward a bit to about 3 years ago, January of 2006. I had had it with suburban work life, I had had it with small minded suburbanites, I had had it with not being surrounded by culture, T-Man was going to start kindergarten that year, and I wanted to go back downtown. So I sent out my resume, immediately got contacted by a sole practioner attorney who was in the heart of the Loop. He also did strictly litigation, and I became his litigation paralegal. What a huge leap from an accounting clerk huh. Anyway, this attorney of mine did business one way and one way only: the best defense is a great offense. And go on the offense he did. I loved it. It was perfect. Unfortunately, opposing counsel oftentimes didn’t like his defensive offense, and his previous paralegals had their deps noticed up many times. Yea. I wasn’t going to have that happen to me, so I learned to sign my name very, ummm, illegibly. There was no way anyone was going to be able to figure out my name to notice up my dep. Not in this lifetime!

So…today. I go to vote. I get there at about 7:10, figuring oh the lines are never long, I’ll have plenty of time to stop at DD and still make my early train. Hee hee, I’m so silly! The line was out the door!!! And to make matters worse, they had three different precincts at my voting place! Luckily I got in the line closest to me, which happened to be the correct line for my precinct, because can you imagine the people who got in the wrong line and then had to wait in line twice? That would have sucked! And I saw that happen, too. I get up to the table and lady number one finds my sheet and has me sign my name. Well, because she had folded it I didn’t see that it had my signature already preprinted on the form, so I just signed my name the way I usually sign it…with a J and 2 loops. I get to lady number two, and she tells me that my signatures don’t match. Of course they don’t match, I haven’t had to resign my driver’s license in 8 years and that’s the signature they have for me on file! Then she asks for my driver’s license because my voter ID card wasn’t good enough, and she wanted to compare signatures. Well, the picture on my license is 8 years old. The signature is 8 years old. So it was just silly. And I was holding up the line. Anyway, that fiasco was momentarily taken care of. I say momentarily because mark my words, if there is an election dispute, I can practically guarantee that my name will get lumped as one of the ballots being disputed (trust me, I used to do election law, we’ve disputed many elections and I know the process). Blah.

Well, at least I voted. Oh, and what’s cool, I knew the names of the Judges on the ballot and I actually was an informed voter when I made my choice on whether to keep them or not. That was pretty cool. It was also pretty cool to see that Senator Donne E. Trotter was up for reelection. He’s friends with one of my best friends, Cindi Pallick so I had to pleasure of meeting him a few times.

And that’s that. Pam is running for mayor next year, but I don’t live in that town so I won’t be voting. I’m also to busy nowadays to work on any campaigns anymore. Besides, I left politics behind three years ago, and don’t really have the desire to get involved anymore beyond going to fundraisers when I have a chance.

So….happy election day!