Vote!

If you're registered to vote in the US and you have not yet done so, please, go and vote!

I went to my polling place before work this morning, and after an hour wait, was able to cast my ballot. My county uses optical readers, so if you bubble in more than one oval for a particular race, it rejects your ballot and you have to redo it. No hanging chads here! In the much-disputed 2000 Election, our county had no problems, and we were using the optical readers then too. My first election up north had punch ballots.

Like many people, I'm mostly just waiting for this to be over. Having registered as an Independent, I get targeted by *both* parties. The past two weeks I've been bombarded with political calls (which thanks to caller ID I just let the machine handle), and junk mail - on Saturday alone we had eleven pieces of political junkmail, from both camps. I don't recall getting anywhere near this much last election, but maybe since Florida was so pivotal, the campaigning has been all the more heated. At the moment, the Florida state flower is the campaign sign!

And it has certainly been quite heated. Maybe I've had my head in the sand all these years, but this election has been uglier than any other one I can recall. And I know that unless one candidate wins by a landslide, there will be legal wrangling and cries of foul play. There have been jokes about armies of lawyers just waiting to stream into Florida post-election, and they may not be far off the mark. The campaigns are over - I fear the headache is just beginning.

God help us all....