one man, two votes

last week i received in the mail not one but two absentee ballots for the upcoming election.

and while this is not quite as thrilling as holding, say, two winning lottery tickets, it’s still very interesting.

the weight of my vote has just doubled. if this were florida, power brokers would be lining up at my door because suddenly my vote(s) matter.

conversely, i could just vote one way on one ballot, the opposite on the other. thus, by voting twice my vote would count not at all.

i could donate one ballot to someone less fortunate than i. or i could sell it on ebay, and retire on the proceeds. for about 15 seconds.

two votes. two votes! hey, waitaminute. the fact that i have two ballots implies the very real probability that other people out there received two ballots as well. this went from a hoot to a “hold on” in a hurry, didn’t it?

who the hell is responsible for this gaffe? is it yet another republican plot? i’m a democrat, so it seems unlikely—until you remember how egregiously republicans have screwed up in the past four years. it seems more plausible, now, doesn’t it?

two votes, multiplied…who knows how many times? it calls into question the integrity of the electoral process. not to mention my integrity. maybe this is some kind of candid camera skit. maybe i’m about to get punk’d.

”excuse me, sir, where were you going with those two ballots? you weren’t going to try to vote twice, were you?!?”

“me? no, i was just going to, uh, report this to my local registrar. yeah, that’s it…my local registrar, morgan fairchild.”

does anyone else know about this two vote thing? i think a web search might be in order. hang on, i’ll be right back…

hokay. turns out i’m not the only voter to hit the absentee ballot jackpot. it says here that lots of folks in my county were double-mailed. also, it goes on to say, ballots will be tracked to ensure no one tries to vote twice.

exsqueeze me? ballots will be tracked? if they know whether i voted twice, doesn’t that imply that they might know how i voted as well? i have to think it does. so the people who said “if you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists” could find out that i’m not with them?

suddenly this whole absentee ballot deal doesn’t sound so good. suddenly this whole double ballot thing doesn’t seem like so much fun. forget it. i’m not voting at all.

[pffft…psyche. i’m voting straight democratic, you ballot trackers. bite me.]