i just spent 1 hour and 50 minutes voting in a predominantly democratic neighborhood with half the spots uncontested. but besides the FAIL that is my willingness to spend hours voting for seats where my input has minimal importance, i would like to point out another FAIL by the DC election board that is well illustrated by the photo above.
for whatever reason, the election board assigned a disproportionate number of people with last names that begin with A-H to the ward 2, precinct 17 voting location of 1518 M street, NW (metropolitan AME church). i would estimate that 80 percent of the people voting at this location had last names beginning in the first 8 letters of the alphabet. OK. fine.
UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, they split up the registration books and the people working those books evenly amongst the letters. that means 80 percent of the voters here are slammed into the first three lines to get their cards, while the other 20 percent shuffle through the other FIVE lines like they’re in the express checkout lane. this also means you have five election people sitting on their ass doing absolutely nothing while dozens upon dozens of alphabet beginners wait in lines 30 people deep. those people on the left? they only represent about 1/10 of the unfortunate fools waiting in line. i couldn’t step further back b/c there was a clusterfuck of people behind me, too. bah.
this, as smart people would say, is fucking stupid.
honestly, if my voting troubles were only created by sheer number of people, i’d really be OK right now. yay for civic duty. but the fact that some asshole with the last name TUCKER voted in 30 minutes while i blasted through 6 different podcasts INFURIATES me.
lastly here are some pics from 9am when i first arrived to vote. and at 11 am when i left? looked about the same. first pic is a map showing how people (pink) were lined up to get into the church. i’d estimate the line was around .15 miles long. i also drew a stick figure that represents where i appx stood when taking the last 2 pics, which are the front and back of the line, respectively.


all that, and all i got was a lousy sticker, free starbucks coffee, and a free krispy kreme donut? we are all fools.