WTF with the moronic voters?
November 20th, 2008 | Published in general | 3 Comments
MPR has a page online showing a few of the challenged ballots in the recount for the MN Senate race. The latest tally has Coleman in the lead by just over 150 votes, and the trend has been that Franken is steadily gaining ground from recount and count clarifications.
The overwhelming message from these ballots is how bad people seem to be at following simple directions. Minnesota uses an optical scanner ballot: it’s exactly the same idea as the standardized tests that every school-age kid has taken for the last several decades, it’s NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. You fill in the little oval, you don’t make other marks. If you make a mistake, you request a new ballot and start over. HOW MUCH SIMPLER COULD IT POSSIBLY BE? Sheesh people, sheesh.
This shouldn’t be surprising. While waiting in the short line for a voting booth, the two people behind me were talking about voting procedure. Not critiquing it, mind you, they were wondering how it was supposed to work. This is after we’ve checked in and received a ballot along with instructions on what to do. They were adults, probably in their 40s, were communicating with each other in a normal fashion, and seemed reasonably intelligent, but at the same time baffled at how to handle the ballot. You fill in the little circles, period. That’s it.
It’s true, there is nothing in the world that is idiot-proof.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:45 pm (#)
Goes to show – make it idiot-proof and the world will build a better idiot.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:12 pm (#)
I bet there are lots of reasons for mis-marking a ballot, although it sounds like there are not really that many, especially out of the millions who voted.
Anyway, the photo displays someone who never took standardized tests, as we did. I imagine a sweet little old lady who drove her ‘65 Impala to the poll and nearly ran one of us over on the way.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:17 pm (#)
Hmmm… she’d be like my grandma, who drove a ‘68 Camaro. Except that she was also a school teacher, and probably gave standardized tests.