> > 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.

> See, that's the thing. I *like* going to the polling place. It's in a church around the corner, so close people would laugh if they knew I drove there (on my way to work, of course). Even if it were not so convenient to get to, I *like* going in and standing in line with other voters and punching out the cards and making sure no chads are hanging, and handing in my vote. I love that part of the process.
>
> So it's not a matter of envy at all. (Besides, I'm much more likely to berate myself for not having thought of it or taken the trouble to do it than I am to have disdain for the person who did think of it -- I'm lucky that it's in my nature almost always to cheer the victor, no matter my own plight.)
>
> Next guess?

Is it because it affronts your sense of right and wrong? I get a similar feeling when I am waiting in a line of cars at a red light, and I see a cyclist go RIGHT THROUGH the red light as if he has some special right to break all the road rules merely because he can.

It doesn't annoy me because I'm still waiting -- I'm rarely in a hurry to get anywhere and I don't get stressed at traffic lights. It just annoys me to see people who ignore rules and/or basic social conventions which the majority of us follow. This would definitely extend to your absentee voter types. Now that I think of it, the real reason this annoys me is that the thing I dislike most in any person is arrogance and general self-centredness, and behaviour like this seems to indicate such traits to me.