Democracy in Inaction

So this afternoon at HotHouse there's a round of voter registration and deputy registrar training. After the bitter results of the 2K election and the lightning rail ride to hell that the Bush administration has placed the country the reasoning is that if we can get more voters registered there's a fighting chance that we won't have to tolerate four more years of George W. Bush.

I was initially planning on attending, but I'm also considering becoming an election judge. I hear from these socialist conspiracy theorists constantly that bad ballot practices in Florida are what cost Al Gore the election, not his lackluster campaigning prior to the debates. I've contended for years that if Al Gore campaigned from the primaries that he wanted the presidency, not as though he deserved it, people wouldn't be making such noise about the Florida recounts. When you let a man with a shaky grasp on the English language thoroughly humiliate you in a Presidential debate, you deserve to lose. But I digress, regardless of how the election turned out, what happened in Florida merited investigation and possibly prosecution in an ideal society.

I've been gently dissuaded by people about becoming an election judge. I've been told it's hard work for "only $100." I don't know. Sitting in a Dominick;s for eight hours on a Saturday persuading a bunch of passers-by that their votes matter doesn't seem like a walk in the park. Every time I vote at my polling station, the judges are gorging on pizza from Graziano's on 31st street.