> > I seriously don't get why it irks me to no end that people who are perfectly capable of driving to (or in one instance, walking literally around the corner and half a block to), getting out of their car at, and walking into a polling place, people who have no out of town business or dependent relatives, people who pay their traffic tickets and dog license renewals on time, register for absentee ballots.
> >
> > I don't want to understand why they do it. I want to understand why it annoys me that they do it.
> >
> > Discuss.
> >
> >
> > - M
>
> Because they're getting out of having to do something that you do have to do. People are always annoyed when other people get something they could get themselves, but just haven't been bothered enough to do so.
>
> They simply have to post a form on the way to work. You have to take time out to go and scribble an X on a piece of paper, (or pull a lever or whatever you do), thus wasting five or so precious minutes they don't have to.
>
> Of course, that may not be it at all...
>
> Beasty

I never looked at voting as a chore. I usually see people that I haven't seen in months, maybe years. I almost always run in to some other retired teachers,and we have that conversation about how much better life is now, and wasn't it great that we got out before things got so bad.

I usually swap jokes with the poll workers, and hear about the successes of their kids who were once my students.

At the last election I ran into a former student that I hadn't seen in weeks. He's my next door neighbor.

And I talked to a neighborhood kid who grew up with my kids. He was running for county commissioner, so I crossed party lines to vote for him. He's 42 now. We have two commissioners in our district and the other one was our former school superintendent, now retired. I voted for him too. They both won.

Now I'm a little worried. We might be out of town when the next election rolls around. I don't need an absentee ballot, because we have early voting for anybody who wants it. But I would miss seeing everybody. Maybe I can get back in time to vote at the regular time and place.
Howard