Elections are a lot more interesting when you live in a swing state.  Interesting, as in everyone cares about how you've voted, when you've voted, and the method by which you've voted.  We get daily phone calls and canvassers who are checking in on us, curious to note which candidate we prefer, which one we voted for.  Last Sunday we had no less than three different sets of people at our front door, asking after our ballots.

Early voting is a good idea, I suppose.  If there is bad weather, a scheduling snafu, a sick kid, well then a person wouldn't be able to vote on November 4th.  I understand how it's supposed to be wonderful fabulous amazing.  But in my state, early voting is turning into a disaster.  The mail service for my town is notoriously bad- some people wait weeks to months for mail that was sent from down the street to turn up.  The push for absentee ballots has special issues when your mail service can't be trusted to deliver the ballots in time for the election.  Or in my case, the ballot arrives and the voter makes a mistake.

Yes, I made a mistake on my ballot.  I filled in the wrong bubble for a small public figure. This isn't a gigantic mistake, but I want my vote to count, so I want there to be no ambiguities.  Recalling Florida in 2000, when the ballots were hand-counted, I wasn't sure if in the case of a hand-count, my ballot would be thrown out for being incorrectly completed.  So I'm willing to go and stand in line forever on one of my work days to be sure I have a complete and accurate ballot. In official terms, I spoiled my ballot.  I spoiled it two weeks ago, and then immediately went to the county clerk's office to try to turn in the spoiled ballot and have a new ballot issued.  I was told then to return on November 3rd to get a new ballot.  Me and all the other ballot fuck-ups get to show up on the same day and sit around talking about what idiots we are.  At least, that's what some people have told me. 

I'm not the sort of person who likes to talk about how she makes mistakes.  Who does, really?  And since we live in a swing state, and we're getting all this attention for our votes, I get to explain at least three times a day what a fuck-up I am.  Each time I get a new volunteer who isn't aware of the policies around spoiled ballots and gets all concerned that I have the wrong information and my vote won't count blah blah blah.  I admit, it sounds kind of fishy- turn up at the county clerk's office on November 3rd?  Who goes there on November third, especially since that isn't an official voting day for early voting and the general election takes place the very next day.  In fact, when I first heard that information I called the local Obama office to ask if this was indeed the case.  I had a staff member spend HOURS calling people on my behalf to verify the information.  She got to the bottom of it, we were both reasonably convinced by the end of it that the third is the day I get to go rectify the situation, and that was that. 

So now that I have the solution, I can go deal with it, right?  No.  Not without daily humiliation, explaining how I fucked up my ballot, talking these nice and a little frantic volunteers off their volunteer ledges, assuring them that I am satisfied with this information and will do whatever I need to do to make sure my vote counts.  Because without my vote registered, my name shows up on their lists with increasing urgency.  No matter that I've spoken with every Obama volunteer in Northern New Mexico, I still get those damn phone calls and canvassers at my door.  It has become such a problem that we put a sign on our front door asking them to leave us alone.  I can't answer the telephone because if it isn't a volunteer, it's Bill Richardson reminding me to take my fucking absentee ballot to the right place on November 4th.  Because Bill Richardson isn't aware that I fucked up my ballot.  If I could call Bill Richardson and explain, maybe he'd stop robo-calling me, but I can't.  So I can't answer my phone OR my door between now and November 4th.

At first I liked how dedicated these people were. I liked the extra attention.  But after two fucking weeks of this, I'm so over it.  I want Obama to win- desperately.  This election has given me new (cliche) hope for our country.  I drink the Obama Kool-Aid with great enthusiasm.  I even swoon over his handsomeness.  But jiminy crickets, people- stop bugging me! 

So yeah, vote on Tuesday.  Go Obama.  Don't fuck up your ballot.