Don't Bug Me - My State's Voted

OK, well, part of us have.
Several years ago, the State Legislature took into account that they were spending a lot of money to open polling places and keep them open 12 hours. In our very rural areas, it was a huge waste of money and time. So what they do now is - the second week of October, they send out paper ballots to every registered voter, with self-addressed stamped envelopes to the county Election Commission. You fill out your ballot at home, pop it into the envelope, and mail it off. No voting machine expense; no machines to break down or to be tampered with. No poll workers and poll managers to pay. You can take an hour or more to read the amendments and questions, if you want. And no one stands behind you at a machine, no one stands waiting on the porch. Fill in the circles, zip, pop, sign, done.

Our county Election Commission folk are the most laid back people you'd ever want to meet. They'll sit and chat with you for an hour or more - about everything, about nothing. Why not? No stress. No problems. Everyone does what they are supposed to do; the folks who get the ballots can read and write, understand the importance of what they do, and send them back promptly, clean and crisp, just like they received them.

Out in the County, no one talks politics. Well, maybe some local politics - like Joe has seven kids and doesn't need to be on this Board any more, he's tired and wants to quit... no ranting, no screaming, no in-yer-face THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST DO. Every once in awhile a TIC or sharp little comment about Obama, but that's all; eyebrows and shoulders shrugging, no fanatical shrieking. It is a given that the Fed Gov will screw us no matter who we put in; nature of the beast, not as important as getting the calves loaded in the trucks this morning.

You know, in SC this could never happen. Too many emotional people and too much angst and mayhem, last minute 'revelations' that, for people who know how to read and who vote on lasting reason instead of burbling passion, are not revelations at all, but simply examples of what they already knew. Unlike the fellow we worked on in the wreck one Election Day, who told us he couldn't go to the hospital, that he had already voted in Point South, Ridgeland, Bluffton, and Switzerland, and still had to vote in Hardeeville and Savannah before the polls closed, or the infamous Jasper County Election Commission member who showed up to the Election Commission office with three hundred signed and voted absentee ballots in his hand; no cheating, no lying, no posturing for this candidate or that. It's over.

So all of those screaming and hissing telemarketers and pollsters can be ignored with the simple phrase, "Already voted". We have more important things to do now. Go away.