The Great American Paper Chase

For the 96th time in my 66 years, I exercised my constitutional right to vote, an activity that has become considerably more complicated than the Founding Fathers ever intended. I suspect George Washington could have voted, chopped down a cherry tree, and returned home before today's election officials finished checking his identification.

I waited until the main event to write about my experience because I was suspicious something might change between June and November. Nothing happened.

Apparently, the machinery of government was functioning exactly as designed, which is frightening.

I approached the registration table, where a pleasant woman asked for my name. Then came the spelling. "How do you spell your last name?" she asked.

"D-A-R-B-Y," I replied. "Like Darby O'Gill and the Little People."

She began typing. I couldn't see her computer screen, but I suspected she was searching the international database for some mysterious foreign gentleman named Tomáš Darviç, possibly wanted in three countries for electoral mischief.

I corrected her and was asked for identification. I briefly considered denying that I possessed any, but I wasn't particularly interested in spending election day explaining myself to a deputy sheriff.

I wanted to get in, vote, and get out. There're only so many indignities one should endure before lunch.

Once admitted, I became the official tabulator of my own political destiny. I worked my way down the ballot, selecting candidates and propositions with the solemnity of a man choosing which wires to cut on a ticking bomb.

I skipped the judgeships listed as nonpartisan. Sure they are. There is nothing quite like asking a voter to make an impartial decision about somebody whose name he has never heard and whose judicial philosophy is apparently classified information.

I did, however, vote for two Washoe County judges who had been removed from the bench for reasons unknown to me. My reasoning was simple.

If they irritated the powers-that-be sufficiently to lose their positions, they deserved a second look. It is not a perfect system of evaluating judicial qualifications, but neither is asking me to vote for someone whose political affiliation is obscure.

Then came the technological portion of the adventure.

I reviewed my ballot electronically, checked my selections, and printed the thing--on paper. Yes, paper!

The very cellulose fibers half the country is demanding, and the other half is apparently unaware it's been using all along. Somewhere, politicians are arguing passionately about paper ballots while standing beside a machine that prints paper ballots.

I imagine this is how civilizations eventually collapse: everybody agrees on the solution, but nobody recognizes it when it walks into the room.

Finally, I carried my printed ballot to another machine, which grabbed it from my fingers and swallowed it into its electronic stomach. A checkmark appeared, confirming that my vote had been received and presumably sent somewhere to be counted, although I wouldn't be surprised if it first had to obtain a passport.

Then, for completing this extraordinary journey through American democracy, I received a little sticker reading, "I Voted." Ninety-six elections, sixty-six years, and all I have to show for it is a sticker.

Pshaw. At this rate, by my hundredth election, I expect a commemorative refrigerator magnet and a complimentary colonoscopy.