For once I did a little prep work for the off-year election and selected my candidates for the school board and city council. However, I didn't look at the materials until yesterday, too late to mail in the ballot for San Mateo County's first "all-mail" election.
No problem--on Election Day I headed over to the Recreation Center, where one could still vote via old-fashioned voting machine or old-old-fashioned paper ballot. I didn't have to show an ID, but one doesn't need to do so for mailing in a ballot either.
The kid at the computer verified my precinct in order to give me a four-digit passcode to operate the voting machine.
This was the only live polling place in the entire City. I asked him what would happen if his computer malfunctioned. No problem, he had a backup machine in the case. Very good, someone had thought this through.
2,133 of the 71,131 votes in the County were cast at the polling places. Perhaps some who voted in person were late like me, but I'd like to think that there were some in the three percent (3%) who enjoy the physical act of voting.
One doesn't fully appreciate the sacrifices made for democracy by just mailing it in.
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