Practicing for Election Day

I did something I've never done before: I took a party ballot today. I'm ordinarily a staunch independent. However, there was a contested local primary — for State's Attorney, a position that should be appointed by the courts and not elected, but that's for another time — in which I have deep, deep misgivings about whether one of the two candidates is an appropriate choice for the office. I therefore left the rest of the partisan part of the ballot blank, voted in that race, and voted in the four nonpartisan referenda.

Oh, you want to know how I voted? Well, first of all, here in Chambanana, our issues don't really matter; one of the referenda requires a change in state law (that isn't going to happen) to become effective, and the other three were poorly written and conceived "advisory referenda" telling legislators to support position X (and Y, and Z). And second of all, as I told the pollster who asked me the same question outside, "What part of 'secret ballot' do you not understand?"

The most irritating part of voting today, though, was where I had to do so. The traditional polling place in this precinct was a boathouse at a nearby park (Crystal Lake, if you know Chambanana). The facility wasn't acceptable. Thus, about a week ago, I got a postcard in the mail from the local wingnut county official in charge of elections... changing it to the nearby new church building (it's as close to a "megachurch" as we have in this area, fortunately). The facility was fine; I just have a problem with mixing "church" and "election."