So I finally broke down to go early vote today. Rather than fight the parking at the old courthouse where apparently most everyone else decided to go cast their early ballots, I chose to head over to the fairgrounds instead. While I was a bit surprised by the length of the line when I arrived, I was also surprised by how quickly they were moving people through the fieldhouse.

What really struck me, however, was that they were offering both paper balloting as well as the new electronic system. The last few times I've hit the polls, I've used the electronic machine, and I don't recall that paper ballots were offered. I haven't slept much since the last election/primary/coin toss, so I might just have forgotten that paper ballots were offered there.

The number of people choosing the paper ballot was also interesting, just from an observation perspective. If anything, I would have guessed that those who have participated in a large numeber of elections (trying to find a gentle way of saying "people older than average") would have opted for the paper system. But in my very limited sampling of people going through, it seemed that the folks choosing the paper ballot were my age or younger.

There was one poor fellow who either ignored the signs advising him to turn off his cell phone, or he just didn't know how to turn it off. Sure enough, just as he placed his paper ballot down and started to mark it, the phone went off. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was standing right next to one of the election officials. As soon as it rang, a chorus of election officials all shouted "cell phones off" and the official right next to him chided him rather loudly. About two minutes later, the phone, and the chorus, went off again. The third time it went off, immediately following the chorus of "cell phone off" he could be heard yelling "stop calling me" when he answered, which was immediately followed by someone else yelling "then turn it off" from the other side of the room. Fortunately, that third call came in just as he was leaving the room.

But the thing that tickled me the most about the entire process was when I got close enough to hear the officials asking each pollster "paper or electronic?" so they could prepare the proper resources for each person. The first time I heard that, I immediately thought "paper or plastic" and then realized that the latter phrase would have worked just as well, as the electronic polling machines are cased in plastic. Fortunately, I was able to keep myself from answering "plastic" when it was finally my turn to respond to that all-important question. Those people didn't look like they had much of a sense of humor...