Voting Green

This morning I went to my local polling place to vote in the 2006 primaries. I am registered in the Green Party, so I could only vote for the Green candidates that were running against each other. It turns out that the only office where more than one Green was running was for the California Senate. There were 3 candidates and I voted for Tian Harter, a guy from Mountain View, CA who listed more bike lanes and transit improvements as two of is main priorities. I also voted for Peter Camejo for California Governor. He ran against Arnold in the last election, and he really impressed me in the debates.

The staff at my polling place was unprepared and disorganized. I was asked to sign next to my name in a book listing my name, address, and political party. When the woman saw that my party affiliation was GRN (Green), she had no idea what that meant. She said, "GRN - what's that? Are you Democrat? Republican? I don't understand this GRN." I explained that it was my party and she said, "That can't be. I only have ballots for these parties (she pointed to ballots for Democrat, Republican, and few smaller parties like American Independent and Libertarian)".

Even the lady working next to her looked at me like I was crazy and felt that there was no such thing as a Green party. By this time, other staff members overheard her and came over to try to help. One of them, who must have known the Green party existed, said that they needed to look for the Green Party ballots. Finally, they found them deep in some box behind the counter and I was happy that I would be able to vote this morning.