I’m from Virginia. I don’t know the last time a national democrat carried the state and I’m too tired to go figure it out. Trust me when I say it’s been a long time. As the better-half and I pulled up to our polling place (a church–so much for keeping church and state separate) we noticed there wasn’t one Kerry sign. The entire road in front of the church was blanketed in republican signs. An older man in a wheelchair (cynic alert: oh for crying out loud an old guy in a wheelchair handing out sample republican ballots–I kindly accepted the sheet and then rolled my eyes. The sheet went on the table inside) and lots of other republicans roamed the parking lot. When the better-half and I cast our votes for John Kerry we knew those votes wouldn’t stand up for more than a second before being cancelled out twenty-fold by all the people in line behind us.
An older man using a cane had to have help from one of the workers in casting his vote. I understand that an election worker may have to go behind the curtain with a feeble voter. What I don’t understand was the complete lack of making sure the curtain was pulled behind them so that we all couldn’t see how he voted. So much for privacy in voting. And, yeah, we’re still using the big voting machines where you pull the lever closed, turn some switches and then pull the lever open. Progress–wherefore art thou?
Late yesterday afternoon I saw a rainbow directly overhead. The better-half snarked that the president probably thinks it is a sign from God that God is pleased about the results of the election. I snarked back that maybe God was showing us a “pretty” so that we’d know sometimes bad things just happen.