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Adventures in Democracy
The first Tuesday in March is Town Meeting Day in Vermont. In many of the state's smaller communities, they have actual town meetings, with debates and voice votes and so on. In Burlington, however, they've distilled it down to your usual voting-election event.
So this morning I walked over to my ward's polling place. Now, I've been living in one ward since last June, but I was still registered in the first ward, so that's where I went. Only, it transpired, I wasn't on the list. In fact, when one of the helper people called and had my name looked up, I was still registered in South Burlington, where I haven't lived since the first half of 2005. Additionally, I have most definitely voted in Burlington since then, and was most certainly registered at the time.
After I got back from my walk -- H. O. Wheeler's a ways off when you live on North Ave -- I went out to my polling place in South Burlington, where I am, in fact, on one of their lists. One of them, mind, not all of them.
So one of the volunteers there wants to look me up in the state's database, just to confirm things. Unfortunately, she's an older woman clearly doesn't know how to use a computer. To be fair, maybe she was confused by the fact it was a laptop with a touchpad in place of a mouse, but still.
I held my tongue the first ten minutes or so as she struggled to log into the computer and onto the state website. But when she accidentally restarted the computer, I stepped in and walked her through the process. "No, you need to click this button, not press Enter." "Press Tab to get to the password line." "Have you tried reloading the page? Reload's the button with two green arrows. No, it's up there, on the screen."
But I'm sure that's all part of the life of a tech support person -- which I'm not. Anyway, I finally got my ballots cast and thrown in the box. Hooray!
Hopefully, when I re-register in Burlington for the November election, it will stick this time.
So this morning I walked over to my ward's polling place. Now, I've been living in one ward since last June, but I was still registered in the first ward, so that's where I went. Only, it transpired, I wasn't on the list. In fact, when one of the helper people called and had my name looked up, I was still registered in South Burlington, where I haven't lived since the first half of 2005. Additionally, I have most definitely voted in Burlington since then, and was most certainly registered at the time.
After I got back from my walk -- H. O. Wheeler's a ways off when you live on North Ave -- I went out to my polling place in South Burlington, where I am, in fact, on one of their lists. One of them, mind, not all of them.
So one of the volunteers there wants to look me up in the state's database, just to confirm things. Unfortunately, she's an older woman clearly doesn't know how to use a computer. To be fair, maybe she was confused by the fact it was a laptop with a touchpad in place of a mouse, but still.
I held my tongue the first ten minutes or so as she struggled to log into the computer and onto the state website. But when she accidentally restarted the computer, I stepped in and walked her through the process. "No, you need to click this button, not press Enter." "Press Tab to get to the password line." "Have you tried reloading the page? Reload's the button with two green arrows. No, it's up there, on the screen."
But I'm sure that's all part of the life of a tech support person -- which I'm not. Anyway, I finally got my ballots cast and thrown in the box. Hooray!
Hopefully, when I re-register in Burlington for the November election, it will stick this time.