Happy Voting Day

The holiday season has begun... first Halloween, and now Election Day! When I was younger I did not think of Election Day as a holiday, but I do now. It's one of my favorite days of the year. I just love voting.

Since this is an off year, Boulder County distributed all ballots by mail. I hate that. I don't want to vote by mail, I want to walk into a polling place and write my choices down while standing in a booth, surrounded by other people who are also voting. After all, if we're making decisions about "the things we do together," why not come together to cast our ballots?

Actually, I believe it is possible to vote in person for this election, but there's only one polling place open (not our regular one, that we can walk to). So instead I waited until today, Election Day, and drove my ballot over to the drop-off spot. I was pleased to see a line of other drivers doing the same thing. Procrastinators? Maybe, but maybe they're just like me and like to vote ON ELECTION DAY. I handed my ballot to an actual person and she gave me a voting sticker (see above), which I brought home and stuck on our mailbox.

Rocket Boy has been bugging me about voting for weeks, apparently afraid that I might forget to do one of my most FAVORITE things in the world. (He and I don't always see eye to eye on politics, but we're both fanatical about the process.) He offered to tell me how he'd voted, but I said no. I wanted to decide by myself. And then when I got home today, we compared notes.

It turned out that we had voted for the same 5 people for City Council (out of 11 running). That amused me. I think if we had discussed it ahead of time, we might have found ways to disagree. We both voted for Appelbaum, Cowles, Dings, Gerstle, and Weaver. I will be very interested to see how that particular election plays out. There are two women running, both endorsed by the Sierra Club and whatnot, and neither of us voted for either of them. That made me feel a little strange, as though I were being insufficiently supportive of my own sex, but I didn't think either of them would help the Council.

It fascinates me that while in Ridgecrest my views were seen as super liberal, in Boulder I am more of a moderate. I voted to take some of the Open Space money and put it toward social services. I voted for both statewide and city taxes on marijuana. (Rocket Boy argued that a Boulder city tax would cause people to buy their pot in Denver. To that I say, "Good!" This city is going to be overrun by pot shops as it is.) On the other hand, I voted no on 310 and yes on 2E, because I am very much in favor of the city creating its own municipal electric utility. I grew up in a town with its own utilities (Palo Alto) and I know how great that can be. And of course I voted yes on Amendment 66, which would be so good for the schools if it could win.

Now comes the nerve-wracking (though still fun) part: waiting for the results.