I went a little off topic yesterday, I was just going to mention I voted then I felt compelled to explain who, what, when, where and why. In my research of voting, I did find some ugly truths from our pasts. It sucks that when the founding fathers were talking all flowery and stately, when they said "all men were created equal, they were kind of just talking about rich white land owning men. Us brown folk couldn't even vote until the mid 1960's, almost 200 years after this great nation was started. Still, here we are, what are we going to do about it now? I have mostly not cared because for the most part, nothing really changes regardless of who is in power.
I am happy to say though, that things have come a long way. Wife registered me to vote sometime in early October, there was a deadline and we barely got in there. Once registered, we could look up our information to find out when and where we could vote. It is a little confusing to figure out, Wife told me that because we registered so late, we would have to vote on November 3rd. I then looked up the information and read through it more carefully and found a list of dates if you scrolled about 4-5 pages down which did have other dates and locations other than the 3rd. While I was doing that, Wife called a number online and although the gentleman on the phone seemed very helpful, he did initially say we would have to wait until the 3rd. We had him on speaker and I kept telling Wife they were both wrong, pointing at what I was reading. The guy on the phone then told Wife to wait while he double checked with someone else and after about 10 minutes, he did come back and say we could vote today (Friday, 10/30).
We were going to head out anyway, to go buy candies and stuff for Halloween, and it just happens that Southpark Meadows, our closest shopping destination, less than about two miles from the house, has two voting locations. We followed the signs and it was over close to the Best Buy store we go to all the time. We got in line, there were maybe twenty people in line in front of us and we made our way in. There was a check-in, where we were verified on a computer with our driver's license, then we walked over to one of maybe 10-15 voting booths. Because of Covid-19, everything is spaced really well, more than six feet away.
I don't really follow local politics well enough to know any better, but I pretty much went red all the way down, triple checking my man Trump got my vote and I said NO to the stupid rail initiative, assholes are trying to force a multi billion dollar rail system here in Austin, while we see these fucking trains run empty most of the day. I mean triple check because after you vote for each candidate by choosing them on an electronic screen, you go through your selections, then a printout is made to take to a different machine and if you look closely at it, it has your choices, so I checked and re-checked that my choices stayed how I made them.
After, I got my little sticker that says "I Vote." I really only did this because I get all caught up in the hype and want to argue with Wife and anyone who will hear me and Wife cuts me off with "shut up unless you vote, all your blah blah blah doesn't matter." I always counter with "it doesn't matter because of the stupid electoral college, Texas always goes to the republicans, but some "dreamers" are saying Texas is in play and could turn blue this election. I can't believe that to be true, but it did happen in 1976, when Jimmy Carter turned Texas blue last time. I just looked and historically, Texas has been Democrat more than it has been conservative, but as the Democrat party leans more toward social liberalism, Texans have moved towards the Republican Party, staying red since 1980.
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