Went out with the family this morning 5:15am to vote. We live in Southern VA, McCain Country, and only had to stand in line for three hours. Happy for that as well because it was raining. Curious thing was there were all kinds of people standing around wearing T-shirts and jackets that displayed their preferences. There was even a McCain booth just outside the courthouse where we voted. Thought this type of thing at the voting locations was prohibited.
Also, before going to vote I stopped by McDonald's to grab a cup of coffee. Could not help but notice on the receipt the date, the store number, the location telephone number, the name of who was at the register, contents of the order, the price, the tax, and a total. Amazing technology standing behind every cup of coffee sold in this country. Curious then to note that after voting the State of Virginia could not provide its citizens with a receipt for verification of their votes. Not a good thing.
We voted, asked for, but were told there would be no verification of our vote or if the machine had read it correctly. I don't know about the rest of you folks, but that disturbs me. We can track every purchase made by every person -- every nickel spent is recorded and fed back in some fashion, every financial transaction of every kind comes with some form of verification for obvious reasons. Why then, can't every state in the union provide voters with some form of verification of their vote?
Well, the answer is of course -- they could. The question is why don't they?
Your thoughts, your war stories on one of the most important days in our history, are welcome.
~Atrus
