Democracy at Work

First, your weekly random picture...it's not toally random since election day was yesterday, but it had me amused:Oh, Australia. :-P

I tried to vote yesterday, and I hope all of you went and succeeded better than I did.

So, I registered to vote at Harrisburg Pride in July. I was gonna wait and do it at a place that seemed more reliable (and see if I could do it online) but...the woman had my phone number on her petition, and she threatened to call me every day until I registered to vote -- and she looked like she meant it. So I registered at her humble little stand at Pride.

Yesterday, I cheerfully hopped in my car, and drove towards the high school -- and decided I didn't want to vote there because, well, frankly the crossing guard was eyeing me down like he was going to decapitate me if I got out of my car.
So I drove until I saw signs for a polling place and I hadn't gone far -- I was at a local elementary school. I even knew where I was because the children's show I was in last semester had performed here. I parked, quite well (for me) I might add. Then I confidently went in to perform my civic duty as an American.
"What's your last name?" they asked. I told them.
"Nope," they said after a few minutes of looking.
"Nope?" I repeated, incredulously.
"Nope." One of the guys at the table got out his cell phone, dialed a number and he and I sat on hold for the next 40 minutes. Finally, we get through to whoever, explain what all had happened (I related my story about registering) and they said "We're sorry sir, somewhere along the line there was a disconnect. You're not registered."
So, they had me fill out the form again. This time though, he made me lick the sides and close it up. I'm not sure why that's significant, but that was really the only difference from last time I registered.
Then the guy gave me a candy bar and said "But don't let this dissuade you from voting next time!"

Despite my lack of assistance, Human Rights Campaign informed me at 2:01 this morning that 204 of the 228 candidates they endorsed had won, and 11 of these candidates were in undecided races (at the time). This included a sound defeat of Rick I-Wanna-Be-A-Phelps Santorum.

Just because I'm in a good mood, I'm going to give you all a second entertaining random picture:Also, check out this interesting, well-worded and (I think) fairly accurate analysis of the election results. (Thanks to Eric for mentioning it on his blog!)