Amy's Robot

Working Families Party, moving up in the world

It's Election Day! And in New York State, that means millions of people are mourning the loss of the old draw-the-curtain, flip-the-thingies, pull-the-lever system that was so mechanically gratifying for all those years. Now we've got illegibly tiny fonts on a piece of paper and broken down scanners. We're bravely entering the world of mid-1990's office technology over here (assuming your polling place is lucky enough to have power.)

But one new development looks promising: the Working Families Party line has moved up, from the last column (E) to the next-to-last column (D)! Every year, more people have voted on the Working Families Party line, and all this voter action propelled the WFP to pole vault over the freaky old Independence Party and wedge itself in next to the creepy old Conservative Party. It's not the greatest neighborhood, but it's a nice progressive spot on an otherwise grim stretch of right-wingness.

Voting for Obama on the Working Families line counts just the same as a vote on the Democratic line, but it speaks more forcefully about wanting a president who sticks up for the interests of regular people.

Google has a helpful map service that finds your polling place, which is nice, but because of storm fallout, this year New York residents can vote ANYWHERE.

Cool! Could this vastly improved change of protocol convince the Board of Elections that we should all be able to go to a website, plug in our address, generate a ballot, and vote for our respective local candidates without having to go to a designated school cafeteria, wait in various lines for an hour while people flip through giant notebooks and figure out which other line we should be standing in, then enter your votes using a freaking scanner? Yeah, probably not.

categories: NYC, Politics
posted by amy at 4:14 PM | #