The Election Process

I recently realized the greatest benefit of not having TV at the new house. We didn't have to hear or see 1 political commercial! It was wonderful!

Our primary here in Michigan was held last Tuesday. I have to say. . . we love voting in the Keweenaw. It's so much fun! We thought it was pretty great when we were in Calumet, but things are even better in our new voting location - the township building in Eagle River. Yep, Eagle River trumps Calumet. (A little political humor there!)

We had some errands to run that day, but voting was on the top of our list. Steve pulled up in front of the township building and parked. We had the only vehicle there, but we did notice 3 cars parked across the street by the waterfall. We exited our vehicle and walked into the building. I took a quick survey of the room. There was a table near the door with coffee and doughnuts. (Nice touch!) There were 2 spots for actual voting on the left side of the room - 1 table with a 3-sided cardboard privacy screen sitting on top of it - and a 2nd table about 8 feet away with another cardboard privacy screen on top of it. The poll workers were also there - 3 ladies - all sitting at one table on the right side of the room. Hence the 3 cars across the street. That was it. The best course of action seemed to be to head toward the ladies - which we did - single file for some reason. 

The first lady kindly asked for our I.D. and we filled out our little forms (name, address, date of birth, signature, checked the box for the ballot we wanted). The second lady checked the registration lists to find us and handed us the appropriate ballots, and we grabbed a privacy folder and a black Sharpie marker. We were told to return to the third lady when we were finished - as she needed to tear off the top stub on our ballot. Steve joked that the room was so big and empty we really didn't need those screens at the voting tables; no one could possibly see how we were voting anyway. Gotta love that guy; he's always good for a laugh. After retreating behind our privacy screens and coloring in the appropriate tiny circle, we inserted our ballots back into the privacy folders and dutifully pointed the stub in the general direction of lady #3. She tore off the stub and we walked the 2 steps to that vacuum machine that sucked in our ballots. After a few more laughs and friendly chat we made our exit - just as another man was coming in to vote. Whew! Glad we beat the rush! 

The ladies said they were there for 2 hours that morning before the first voter even arrived. Oh, and you know those privacy folders that held our ballots? It looked like Eagle River has a grand total of about 3 of them on hand! What a hoot! God bless America!

All is well in the Keweenaw.