Confusion at the Polls

Things are happening around our neighborhood. What with the Coronavirus numbers rising, we are staying indoors, mostly. We are managing to keep the grass mowed, the mail distributed, and the pizza delivery people on the road. I did miss the trash pickup this morning, and when I saw the truck picking up my neighbor’s bin, I ran mine across the street, so it could get it on the way back. It seems the “way back” was done first, so my full trash bin is still across the street. I’ll have to go get it after I finish here. My neighbor Leonard is nice, but he’s not in a good mood this afternoon, and he may not like the fact that my over-flowing bin is just to the right of his driveway.

Leonard is confused, too. He called late this afternoon. I could hear Wanda June, his wife, in the background feeding him information. They’ve been married over fifty years. They finish each other’s sentences, and seldom have a thought without it being modified by the other. When they are both on the phone, conversations are interesting.

It seems that they had just returned from voting in the early election (“primary run-off”, she told him). Anyway, Leonard wanted to know which Congressional District we were in. He wanted to vote in the one where the doctor is running against the lobbyist. I knew exactly whom he was talking about. Every break in our local television has been flooded with commercials … some touting the accomplishments of one while deriding the smarminess of the other. Ten minutes later, the smarmy one is the accomplished one. At least we know the names. The problem is these two candidates who are running in the Republican Run-off are not in our district … just our television viewing area.

I must admit, I was a little confused, myself. I told him we were in District 13 where the doctor and lobbyist are duking it out. The more I tried to explain that he’d probably gotten a Democratic Party Runoff ballot by mistake, the more I realized I wasn’t sure. I told him I would look it up.

A few minutes later, full of virtuous information, I called him back. No, we are in Congressional District 19. There’s no run-off for Congress in our district. The woman, who had tried to explain it to him at the polling place, was right. His only choice, this round, was for a couple of judge candidates he had never heard of. In the background, Wanda June was reminding him that one of them was a woman. Leonard is convinced that Wanda June would be an all-out feminist if left to her own devices, so I was surprised when he said he decided not to vote.

“You didn’t vote for the man judge?” I asked. “No, I don’t vote unless I’ve studied up on it.” He wanted to warn me about the experience and give me time to look up those judge candidates before I went over to the college and cast my ballot. I thanked him.

It took very little time to look up my own choices. I didn’t recognize either of the names of the candidates on my ballot. So, I’ll have to do a little studying before the end of the week. I’d sure hate to have Leonard making a more-informed decision than I did.

I will not, however, tell Leonard that my run-off ballot doesn’t have any judge candidates on it. That might confuse him more.