I showed up at the precinct office today to vote. 1st early voting day in the Lone Star State. Big Tex RIP. Drove my son and his friend to school for early cross country practice. I arrived at the office at 6:58 am. Nobody there. Damn. The place doesn't open til 8:00. I drove to our small town's fantastic french Boulangerie. I got 2 pumkin spice scones, a apricot - frangipani danish, and a ham and sausage savory pastry. Oh yea, and a Mostess cupcake (looks like a hostess cupcake only this one is scratch made and tastes like a dream). Most of these are going home to share with wife and son. Most, but not all.
Oh. Sorry. Back to voting below.
Back to the Precinct office, Hays County, Precinct Four.
Great googledy globules of grumpy giant goop! I wasn't first anymore. Drat!!!!! I was 5th. Got there at 7:42. Sat down in one of the chairs and kept my mouth shut. The discussion was about wells. My well at 450 feet went dry about 5 years ago, but we were fornuate enough to have water supplied to our neighborhood, so we tapped in. Now my bills are $70.00 a month or so for the next forever. We put a metal roof on our house to collect rainwater, but our house's roof is too small to supply 100% of our needs, so we ended up not installing rainwater collection. Many people in the county don't have that option. It is well, rain, or truck it in for them. Voter #3 was saying that when his 900 foot well goes dry, the next aquifer is 2500 feet down and $100,000 to drill. This is a right of capture system. You cam pump all you want, whether you are a small home owner, or run a shrimp and catfish farm and use a million gallons a day. (this happened in our county, fortunately they went backrupt and got sued by all the investors they scammed, but you can see the problem). There now is a Ground Water Board member to vote for. One is Tea Party, one isn't. Maybe.
7:55, Jucge comes out and tells us no cell phones in line, and whoever has a car with a bumper sticker on it has to get it out of the parking lot or turn the car around and back the bumper over the curb so it is more than 100 feet away. So I ask voter #4 to hold my place in line and go hide "OBAMA 2012", and "MORMONS for OBAMA". Back in line.
8:00 Door opens up, we go in, all the people in front of me are showing drivers liscences and/or voter ID cards. Inside I am screaming: "Poll tax! Justice department!" Voter #4 hands over driver's liscene and ID card, and the registrar says "Here take this back, I don't need this if you have your voter ID card. Whew, it's going to be a good day. I step up. Hand over Voter ID card, no liscence. He looks up name and reads address, it checks out. I have been in this precinct for 19 years and was a precinct assistant judge in 2008. Card back in hand, I get my e-slate code number and step up to booth #5. I don't like e-slate, but at least it isn't Diebold. Would prefer and optical scanner. I get to vote for the second time for Barack OBAMA, my favorite muslim kenyan socialist communo-fascist presidtial interloper. YEA! I took part in the great American conspiracy. Down ballot, I vote for total of 0 Rethuglicans, 0 Libertarian crackpots. Where there are no Dems running (quite a few spots), I vote Green or if no Green, I skip it.
I am done! On the summary page, my vote was not changed to Mitt Romney. Who knows if this will hold until it is counted? So I was in the booth the same time as voter #1. I don't think 3 of the first 5 voters were Obamians. so I don't think he will ever lead in the precinct. We were one of the last counties in white Texas to turn GOTP, so we lost our State Rep Dem and our County Judge Dem and Constable Dem in 2010, and we also got jerrymandered out of Lloyd Doggett. I don't think we will get them back in the next 20 years. If you thought the last 3 Texas Senators were bad, wait for Ted Cruz. He will be very agressively bad. Barf. Ho hum. Sucks is as sucks votes. Love ya all Daily Kos. Go vote. I will voulnteer for GOTV now. Back home to eat scones and take a nap. Today is my day off. Please hang on Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and Wisconsin. 67% at Intrade sounds good but in reality is only 2:1 not so sure for quarterhorse betting. I would prefer 4:1. Vote Now Early and Often. I've got the early part down, now for the often. Maybe I could vote for my brother in law, he is registered here, but....... (if this snark ends up on the EIB network as evidence Kosites are admitting anything, I'll sue.) VOTE TEXAS