For the past fifteen years, I’ve voted by absentee ballot in Mexico. This year I had particular problems with getting registered and thought I’d failed when suddenly, as if by magic, I received my absentee ballot via e-mail. My good fortune, as I’m presently visiting in the states and I can just mail it in this year and it will get there in time! So, I connected my laptop to my friend’s printer and pressed the “print” button. This, truthfully, was the result.
Absentee Ballot
When I went to print the ballot out,
minutes later I had to shout
“Stop!!!!” when minute after minute
the printer always had more in it!
It printed out ream after ream
no end in sight—so it would seem.
To vote for president was simple,
but that just seemed to be a pimple
on the ass of all the choices
for which they sought to hear our voices.
Senators for state and nation,
congressmen, then more frustration:
water boards and State Assembly,
then measures ’til my hands grew trembly.
Statements by candidates to rate,
endorsements, ballot measure debate,
instructions, warnings, declarations
occasioning more perturbations.
School bonds, statutes, legislation,
reeled out with no hesitation.
Tax extensions,cigarette tax,
laws that we were asked to axe.
School laws that were multilingual,
laws prophylactic, cunnilingual.
Initiatives on marijuana,
and fire protection made me wanna
rip my hair and cuss and scream.
Still out they rolled, ream after ream.
When I got to number sixty-seven,
it made me want to pray to heaven,
“Please, dear God, not one measure more
or I’ll soon be at heaven’s door!”
I gave the ballot one more poke
as with one sure determined stroke,
I banned the plastic bag, then broke
my pen over my knee–a joke,
for then another page popped out
as victory smirk turned into pout.
District initiatives, then county
made me rue this voting bounty.
For when I thought that I was done,
I discovered I had just begun.
Pages? Thirty-seven in all
are printed out, before they fall
fluttering, onto my floor.
The printer burps, pops out one more.
“Oath of Voter” said this one.
And so I cussed. And I was done!!!
The prompt today was “Perplexed.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
In order to ensure better turnout, California has chosen to lump propositions in with major Federal and State elections only.. The result is that we will have 17 propositions, and a voter’s guide that is 224 pages long! I wonder if I can read that much political stuff in the month I will have!
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Wow, how to make it easy to bote…
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*vote
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What about the chad …? Cheers Jamie.
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Oh we’ll just let him float around. No Chads on the Absentee ballots. Just had to connect the arrow to its origins.
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We have paper ballots in this town, so that’s pretty much what our ballots look like every year. You get into the voting booth, hunt down your reading glasses, and start trying to sort out all the different propositions, referendums, appointments to the board of selectman and the school board. Whoever is at the top of the ticket is the least of your problems.
Some people go in and never return, lost in endless pages of stuff they had no idea would assault them on voting day. Oy.
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What I hated was that it printed out all 38 pages using up Forgottenman’s ink and paper!!! I could have read it all on the web. Didn’t know what I was printing out. The ballot itself was only 2 pages long. Simret said her CA voters guide was 224 pages long, so I’m lucky.
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Yes. Our government has no concept of brevity.
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Lordy, if I could have a dollar for every wasted piece of printed paper? We would both be rich …!
Cheers Jamie.
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Cute poem. I’m not voting this year.
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Democracy is so inherently messy.
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Not to mention confusing and ink-guzzling.
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