Public Service Announcement: Voting Attire

It’s voting day here in Wisconsin.  The day on which we, as citizens of our great nation and state, get to go to the polling stations and waste our time voice our opinions on who we want to rob us blind represent us on the ballot in November.

And is the norm for Rick & I, we go together.  This is something that we have done for over 20 years.  Hand-in-hand, we walk through those doors to place miniscule “x’s” in tiny little boxes that may or may not count depending on how well the polling personnel are at seeing.  And by the looks of it at our polling station today, the metamucil crowd that they lined up for volunteers did’t leave me with great hope.

But I did learn 2 things today when we voted:

1.  They did not ask for ID because that is still going through the courts.  Personally, I think the ID requirement is bullshit.  What, for heaven’s sake, is this trying to prevent?  Illegal immigrants will put Juan Valdez on the ballot?  Terrorists will plot to invade the US with fake ID’s, resurrect Saddam Hussein and elect him as the next President?  Anybody who has enough time and idiocy can create a fake ID if they want to.  They used to do it all the time when I was young just to get in the bars.  It’s got to be even easier now with computer technology!

2.  There is a dress code for voting.  I shit you not.  When Rick walked out of the polling booth, the 146-year-old polling volunteer who had taken our information and had us sign our names was waiting for him.  In her stern schoolmarm voice, she told him that in the future when he came to vote, to not wear the T-shirt he had on.

Do you see anything wrong with this?  It doesn’t say “Terrorists are People Too“, or “My Pitbull Eats Kittens for Lunch“.  Who is going to be offended by this?  And there was no one else in there besides the donut eating poll nazi’s that saw it.

Being the polite person Rick is, he smiled and lightly laughed an “OK” to the lovely lady and we departed the building.

But when I got home, I got to thinking more about the experience and wondered if it was really the shirt that was the problem or the button he had pinned to it.

I mean, this could really scare the bejeezus out of some people.