i sincerely hope all my readers are registered & plan to vote today if you haven't already.

in past elections here in indiana i voted using big old '70s-style voting machines: flip the lever, baby. this year i used a paper scantron ballot: fill in those ovals!

i'm not sure if the ballot difference is simply because i'm now voting in a different precinct, or because of changes in local election procedures.

i got to my polling place around 8:20. i overheard one of the poll workers say something like "from 6:30 to 7:15 the machine wasn't counting ballots. they had to come in & fix it" (i'm not sure if she said 7:15 or 8:15).

i was voter #76. i don't know if that includes the people who voted around 6:30 or not, but there weren't many people there so i suspect they had already run those ballots through again.

this was my first time voting for a democrat for president! in past elections i voted third party... i was so dissatisfied with the clintonesque "neo-liberalism" (aka "business-friendly democrats") that i refused to identify with the democratic party. so in my first couple elections i voted libertarian. i now see the irony in that: the DLC might have had its hands in big business's pockets, but the libertarian party is f'n radical in their belief that corporations can do whatever the hell they like. i do still think voting for a third party can be noble (since those parties need the federal funding, which is primarily why i voted lib in the first place), but the libertarian economic platform just scares me.

in 2000, i voted for nader. no, i don't regret it. but this year i voted kerry, obviously.

get out & vote, bitches!