Man, hard to believe that old Cali is the world’s eighth largest economy in the fucking world. Today’s election cried the fuck out for a UN inspection of the voting process for this western country.

First, a governor, who rode in on the fixing a broke government horse, throws out a crazy-ass list of initiatives. Par example (which I should be writing in Austrian, only I guess in Austria they speak German or some shit), any way, in the middle of a decade between the statistical bookends of a 10-year national census, Arnie is hoping everyone will want to change the current gerrymandering shapes of voting areas. Great fucking idea, if the people who pay attention to this shit didn’t keep pointing out how quickly the demographics keep changing.

And, fuck representational democracy, better we pick three old men to make the plan and draw the new shapes.

As stupid as the questions may be, and some of them just piss me off (I’m thinking parental notification for abortion, including “minors” old enough to be married), that’s not why I want some investigatin’ going on. Nope it was the process. Today’s experience had me longing for my distant land of The PR of Cambridge, which even though it’s done on paper with the kind of magic markers your mom wouldn’t buy, because they dry out, and included a complex algorithm of proportional voting, left me feeling safe and democratic.

I live in what is actually the largest city in Northern Cali. San Jose trumps the far more fabled and touted San Francisco. However, here, it ain’t like no city I ever seen. My neighborhood apparently has so few registered voters, it doesn’t rate a polling place. Nope everyone in my precinct had to vote by a paper ballot mailed as to an absentee voter. (Which, according to the Santa Clara County Dems, with whom I registered my rock the vote right, is just fucking ducky. Apparently, this major-sized county is one of the ones in which voters have no proof of voting (or some shit, I don’t quite get, because it’s done with computers and somehow that translates to an inability to proffer evidence.)

M., who kept his address from the presidential race, voted in some dude’s garage that was converted to a polling place. What the fuck? Ain’t there enough schools, classrooms, old-age centers, administrative offices or whatever municipal floor space in this town? A citizen’s garage? How developing nation is that?

I forgot to mail my mail in ballot, but that was fine. I had a list from the officially poll-type organization that uses garages and doesn’t give me a place to go with drop off points for my ballot.

In my head, I imagined one of the big metal boxes with some kind of roller and lever and mysterious clockwork gears, in which I would lay my ballot, just like I knew from back home. Or maybe, a big metal mailbox labeled ballots, but otherwise looking all voter-y official.

What I got was a canvas bag with nice embroidery on top with the county name and a precinct number. The zipper encircling the lovely embroidered top seemed sturdy and athletic and secure. And, the leather-lined, ballot-sized slot made it all seem quite official. But, honest to fucking god, I just slipped my precious civic duty into an official county gym bag.