Voting

When my daughter and I arrived, there were 5 lines, for different chunks of the alphabet. Two were empty, one had one person waiting one had two, and A-F had 35. (It looked as though the registered voter binder was bigger for A-F than the rest, too.) Lots of signs said that they weren't there to debate the law but to administer it, and please have your ID handy. Everybody did. My jaw did not hit the floor.

We had plenty of time to strike up conversations about the weather, the tattered basketball on top of one of the gymnasium fans, and the groups of middle school kids brought in to see the zoo.

Wisconsin presidential primaries: pick a party on the ballot and mark whoever you like. Or dislike least. Seesaw: back-room deals to pick candidates based on favors rendered and promised isn't very pretty, so let the voters decide. But which voters, and on what basis ("if you do read the newspapers you are misinformed")? That doesn't look very pretty either, especially when the voters pick a candidate that doesn't have much to do with the party (and thus won't get much done). So add super-delegates that are party stalwarts. That kludge makes voters unhappy too and some may sit out the general election in protest. Nothing is going to work perfectly, and I have a suspicion that we'll be drifting back to greater party control soon, and then years afterwards, assuming we still keep up the formalities, back to voter selection.

Back in '03 I tried to figure out a plan for a binding "None of the Above" on the ballot. I still think it is worth a shot.

As we left, a woman with a slightly grumpy two-year-old on her hip came out of the gym. "No, they didn't have any suckers for you," she told him.