What I enjoyed about voting last week (besides the 3 minute commute to my polling place) was that I had a chance to vote for candidates that will have some level of impact on me and my immediate community. Again, as a guy who has been voting in Morris County for the last 15 years, the people that I’ve been voting for have largely not been the Mayors, Town Councilors, Board of Education members, State Legislators, and Congressmen who have a direct impact on the community where I actually live. Last Tuesday, the votes that I cast were different in that they have a direct relationship to my daily life.

And the American in me enjoys the fact that I get to vote in the first place! Unlike most folks out there, I enjoy voting for people from both sides of the aisle – which I did last Tuesday. One of the great things about this country is that we have a choice. Frankly, I wish we had more that two viable choices and I really wish that the Libertarian and Constitutional Parties would grow to become larger players in American politics. But that’s okay – the people are beginning to realize that there are more than two answers to every political question and that it’s not such a bad idea to get people with different ideas involved.

As for the results from last week’s elections, well I didn’t think it was any big surprise. Of course the Republicans were going to run away with the Senate and increase their lead in the House – the majority of the places and states in this country are center-right and every political map proves that point. Yes, the cities and urban areas vote heavily Democratic and that’s where the President has his most ardent supporters, but most of this country isn’t filled with cities and urban areas. Thus the results from last week are no big surprise.

Plus, I’m a big believer in divided government. We have a Democratic President and I think it’s a good idea to have a Republican Congress to check his power. I thought the same thing when President George W. Bush was in charge – a Democratic Congress was good for him to have to collaborate with the other side (which he did very well at the beginning of his first term as well). The biggest “check” that I think will come out of the Republican Congress is their ability to conduct fuller investigations in the Senate. The talking heads on television suggest that there are a variety of scandals brewing from Benghazi to the fast and furious gun running issue to immigration and now to the fact that there were blatant lies told to the American people in order to get the Affordable Care Act passed.

While those are all issues that deserve fuller investigations, what I’m looking forward to knowing more about is the IRS targeting scandal. Folks, if the accusations are true – that the IRS targeted individuals and groups that they disagreed with politically – then that is going to be the biggest scandal in the history of American politics up through our lifetimes, I guaranty it. This is the exact type of issue that the colonists rebelled against back in the late 1700s and it’s the exact type of issue that makes our government ineffective in the 2010s. So… that’s what I’m looking forward to from the new Congress: a true investigation into the IRS targeting scandal.

Here is a look at the interaction (or lack thereof) that I had with the Morris County Clerk’s office. First, the information that they posted on their website:

EMAIL APPLICATIONS TO ASMITH@CO.MORRIS.NJ.US OR FAX APPLICATIONS WITH EMAIL ADDRESS TO 973-285-5233

BALLOTS WILL BE SENT TO YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

RETURN BALLOT TO BALLOTSUBMISSION@CO.MORRIS.NJ.US OR FAX TO 973-984-8412

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HURRICAN SANDY DISPLACEMENT VOTER njelection.org

APPLICATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED NO LATER THAN 5PM NOV.6TH 2012.(EMIAL/FAX)
THE VOTERS MUST TRANSMIT THE SIGNED WAIVER OF SECRECY ALONG WITH THE VOTED BALLOT BY FAX OR EMAIL FOR RECEIPT BY BOARD OF ELECTION NO LATER THAN NOV.9,2012 AT 8P.M.

Okay. Easy enough, right? According to the information above, all I have to do is send a copy of the application (which was readily available on the county website) after I filled it out. Which I did as you’ll see below. This is the e-mail I sent to the Morris County Clerk’s office at 7:57pm on Monday, November 5th:

Subject: Application for E-Mail Voting – Borough of Mount Arlington

Good evening,

Attached to this message please find my application to vote in tomorrow’s election via e-mail. You may reach me at this e-mail address or on my cell phone if you have any questions. I look forward to receiving my ballot via e-mail and voting in tomorrow’s election.

Best regards,
Joe

I sat there and I waited – patiently – for a response from the County Clerk. Frankly, I just wanted my ballot sent to me via e-mail – I didn’t need any discussion! I figured that the ballot would be sent my way at some point the following morning. Well, the next morning came and went and I kept on waiting. It was 12:00pm on Election Day – I heard nothing from them. It was 1:00pm on Election Day – I heard nothing. And then, right before 2:00pm (it was 1:52pm to be exact), I couldn’t take it any more. I sent the following e-mail to the County Clerk’s office:

Hello,

I e-mailed my application to vote by e-mail ballot last night at approximately 8:00pm. I have not heard back from anyone at the clerk’s office, so I am going to my polling place in Mount Arlington instead. As such, I withdraw my application to vote by e-mail for this election.

This system is obviously not ready for use by the public. You should not have made it available for this election, regardless of the demands coming from Trenton.

Good luck,
Joe

A few minutes after I sent this message I got in my car, drove to Mount Arlington, voted (in less than 3 minutes), and then went to my family’s place to hang out for a bit. And in case you were wondering whether or not the Morris County Clerk ever got in touch with me to explain what was going on… no, they didn’t get in touch with me. On Twitter, they noted that they received thousands of requests for these e-mail ballots. By the utter lack of communication that I received from them, I would imagine that they didn’t really have that many people confirming the applications that were received and then sending out those specific ballots. I stick by my comment in my second e-mail: this process was not ready for prime time and should not have been made available to the public as a viable voting option.

Think about this – if every person’s vote counts, then those “thousands” of people who request an e-mail ballot probably don’t have their votes counted yet. And they certainly didn’t have their votes counted last night. In fact, the MorrisElectionResults.org website shows that zero of those ballots have been as of 11:23pm last night.

In other words, if you voted by e-mail ballot, absentee ballot, or provisional ballot and you’re a Morris County voter… then your vote didn’t count this year. Oh sure, eventually your vote will be counted and added to the totals, but at that point the concessions have been made and the majority of the elections are over and no longer waiting for your vote to count. Imagine if those thousands of e-mail ballots, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots all voted for the same candidates in one of the countywide, statewide, or national elections. Those accumulated votes might not have been enough to sway an election, but it might be enough to suggest that a victory which was reported (for example) as 65% for one candidate and 35% for the other candidate was actually 55% for one candidate and 45% for the other. That change in total votes is a big, big deal and directly impacts the post-election discussion!

And here’s the thing – I like the Morris County Clerk’s office. I think that they’re probably the most efficient clerk’s office in the state (I deal with several of county clerk offices and the team in Morris County is really among the best, if not the best in the state). But I don’t like that they made the e-mail option available for yesterday’s election. I know that it was somewhat pushed on them by Trenton, but it wasn’t ready for wide use by the public and that gives an otherwise great clerk’s office an unfortunate, temporary black eye.

It’s not that I don’t like the whole voting booth experience, it’s that it is very hard (and expensive) for someone who rents in one part of the state to travel to another part of the state to cast a single vote. Plus, add in the fact that I generally have to go to work on Election Day and you get a real problem in terms of traveling logistics. If there is an option available to cast an absentee ballot in place of making the trip and having to juggle a ridiculous schedule, then why not take it?

For those of you who are registered in Morris County and looking to have an absentee ballot sent to you instead of having to go to the polls, feel free to click here to download the very easy to fill out, one page application. I think that the Civilian Absentee Ballot is a great option to get more people voting more consistently.

A dance troupe!

I’m not sure how the voting is conducted by Britain’s Got Talent, but I think I read somewhere that there are ten finalists and they are all voted on by the public. I have to imagine that if the show pitted Susan Boyle against any of the other nine finalists in a head-to-head showdown, she would win the vote hands down. Having potential votes siphoned off by eight other acts is tough on any contestant in any competition.

After Susan Boyle lost the competition, she reportedly hollered that she hated Britain’s Got Talent as she went back to her dressing room. Worse yet, she checked herself into a hospital as she was suffering from extreme exhaustion. Frankly, I blame the tabloid media in Britain as they tried to paint her as a monster after she blew up earlier in the week letting off a few four-letter words. The poor woman – who gives a shit if she told someone to fuck off? The woman was tired and overexposed by the very media that then had the gall to call her overexposed!

Regardless of her loss on Britain’s Got Talent, expect big things coming for Susan Boyle. She has a raw talent that, once refined, will make her a good living in the European theater scene for the rest of her life. And besides, while she may not have won Britain’s Got Talent, she certain won the hearts and minds of the world-at-large and, most importantly in terms of marketability, she won over the internet crowd.

For example, I’ve been looking at the voter results in my hometown of Mount Arlington (obsessively so). The Constitution Party received 2 votes in my hometown out of a total of 2,536 votes case. Repeat: they received 2 votes. Honestly, that’s not too bad! Mount Arlington isn’t too big and for a third party to pull any votes is impressive. Write-ins received 14 votes, Ralph Nader had 13, the Libertarians had 5 votes, the list goes on. In total, third parties received 41 votes or 1.6% of the vote.

Again, that’s not totally bad in this type of election, but if the third parties want to do better then they should be building a stronger base at the local level. For example, there were 4,387 votes cast for the Mount Arlington Borough Council (you get to cast two votes, which means a total of 5,072 votes could have been cast – some voters obviously chose not to vote for Borough Council or only cast one vote). I have to imagine that if a third party really wants to make an impact, they would spend a good deal of time and money at the lowest level of government and try to win these smaller elections. You win the local election for Mayor or Town Council or whatever, prove that your policies work at the local level, then try to expand to other local municipalities or to the county level (depending where you are in the United States).

The Republicans won in Mount Arlington and from what I can see, they’ve done a fine job of leading. They were handed the short end of the stick thanks to Governor Money Bags’ new anti-small town policies, but they’re managing. That said, their leading candidate received 24.34% of the votes cast. A third party should be able to meet that percentage if they wage a good campaign.

Or maybe there are other reasons why third parties aren’t making it in America. If I were running a third party, I’d choose a few small towns across America and use them as examples for why my party should be elected to higher offices. Hell, I’d even look at taking in disenfranchised members of the Republicans or Democrats and use them as the candidates for my party! Why not use those folks who already have name recognition and some type of rapport with the public?

But I would do more. I would hold voter registration drives and be sure to get those people who have never registered or never thought of registering. Go door to door if necessary and have unregistered voters fill out a voter registration form at the same time as they fill out an absentee ballot request. Put them on that perpetual absentee ballot program and tell them that it means they can literally vote from home – so long as they drop the ballot in the mail in time. If it’s legal (and I don’t know if it is), drop them some simple, uncomplicated campaign propaganda. Get them a button or a bumper sticker or something.

It just seems to me that third parties aren’t utilizing these very simple tactics in order to take a foothold at the smallest levels of American society. Again, maybe they are doing these things in places other than New Jersey and I don’t see it, but I have to think that third parties could be doing a better job of getting the word out about their existence and their platforms.