Early Voting Begins in Orange County

I'm not a fan of early voting, mainly out of concern for voter fraud. I think it gives the ACORN crowd and others bent on fraud many more opportunities to ply their trade. I'd rather see more precincts opened with more machines used and make everyone vote on the same day. It would dramatically cut down on voter fraud.

However, they don't let me decide those things and so today early voting opened in Orange County and I took advantage of it in order to be done with this thing. Here's how I originally entered my vote for president:No, I didn't leave it that way. I grudgingly changed it to McCain before hitting the magic "Cast Ballot" button.

And now that I've cast my ballot, I'm immune from whatever the press might try to do to influence my vote. For instance, if they suddenly discover that "Joe the Plumber" is really "Josephine the Plumber", too late. I'm already in McCain's column.

This is the first presidential election in which I can say I've personally met one of the candidates on the presidential ballot. I hate to admit it, but I've twice met Wiley Drake, the VP nominee for the American Independent Party. He's a nutty Baptist preacher from Buena Park who was in the audience at a couple of concerts I did some years ago.

We voted at the Mission Viejo Mall, one of several early voting locations in Orange County. Most of the them make good sense, except for the location at the Orange County Airport. They put the voting area inside the security zone meaning that you can only use it if you are a ticketed passenger. Not real smart.

At the corner leading into the mall we were greeted with maybe 50 or so demonstrators shouting and waving their opposition to Prop 8, the gay marriage initiative. They are demanding to keep their "rights" to marry whatever they want. Even the Secretary of State got into the act, changing the title of the proposition to "Eliminates the Right of Same Sex Couples to Marry". He doesn't mention that this "right" was just discovered on May 17th by a handful of justices on the California Supreme Court, or that 61% of California voters opposed gay marriage the last time a ballot initiative was offered.

And do these demonstrations really matter? Do voters driving by and seeing some butch woman with a ring in her nose and tattoos on every exposed part really see that and think "yeah, I'm with her!". Most people seeing that would probably say "okay, you can marry if you promise not to reproduce".

The voting experience itself wasn't too bad, but I see trouble coming. The volunteers were not as familiar with the computer equipment they were using as you'd like them to be and when the crowds really hit, watch out. Oh, and for those ACORN voters, good news! They don't require ID when you vote in California. You can be whoever you want to be.

Early voting will continue in Orange County through the 28th.