Anyone else feel phobic about voting?

[VOX]

I mean the actual *act* of voting. Going to the polling place, dealing with the usual senior citizen volunteers, getting in line for a booth. Before I go to vote, I get antsy, my pulse always rises and my breathing becomes a bit shallow. It's as if I'm going to the doc or something.

I've been laid up with bronchitis for a few days, so I have to wait to ride with my wife to the polls this afternoon. We should be going about 4:00 p.m. PDT, so I'm ready to pace the soles off my shoes, and am utterly wired with anxiety.

Anyone else experience anything like this? (And cheers to the first wag who posts, "No, but I'm always anxious about *how* the voting turns out!")

All best -- :toast:

on edit: typos!

[L.A.dweller]

1. I get pretty nervous too,

and I fear that my something will go wrong like my name won't be on the list and I'll be banned from the voting location forever. But things went very smooth for me when i got there especially since I had the sample ballot with me.

[VOX]

3. Exactly -- I skipped that part...

The no-name-on-the-list fear, and now, the compulsive chad-check, which isn't a bad thing.

I'll often re-check my ballot punches to ensure that I've poked out the correct numbers...

Whew. :toast:

[dofus]

2. Naah. I'm all primed to get aggressive

if my right to vote is challenged.

In 2004 I worked as a Democrat observer in a polling place. Quite interesting. It all went smoothly. One man who showed up to vote wasn't on the rolls, and I needed to remind the real workers (since I was just an observer) that they needed to give the man a provisional ballot, which would be counted if it turned out he really was on the rolls.

I live in Kansas.

[Wolfman 11]

4. what is it like in the future?

[dofus]

13. LOL!

I did it in 2000. I've been so obsessed with the 04 election that I put that in by mistake.

I wish I could say that in the future we have a real elected president and that people really care about each other, about fully funding health care and good schools, but alas, I fear the future will be a lot like the present.

[Deja Q]

5. I do it, but at times I don't know why

I vote at a church, interestingly enough. You'd think the Christians within would be a nice, warm, welcoming bunch. They're not.

Then comes voting. I just vote "D" without a care. Meaning I don't care except to get the "R" out. Just to get the waste of time over with and hope the "Democrat" wins, even though half the time he'll do the repuke thing...

The people I want to vote for, I can't due to ridiculous peer pressure. Mostly because people automatically decide that candidate will not win (kinda like how DUers side with Kucinich yet won't vote for him because they know he'll lose, sigh...) and the people who DO vote for that party may as well get shot in the head by everybody else who in turn chastise them to death and blame them for the situation that gets put into place. :eyes: Everything can be spun to anyone's personal satisfaction, and that's something I'm just sick of.

I want to know why half this country does not care about voting whatsoever. I'm about to join them, the "D" is give out is increasingly token.

Assuming I survive to 2004. They say bankruptcy is an alternative to falling on one's sword. Yet everybody is allowed to discriminate against you if you've gone bankrupt, so where's that sword again?

This society is a sack of shit and it's never going to change back to the path of dignity, fairness, and righteousness. x(

[A-Schwarzenegger]

6. I almost started hallucinating

with the pushpin thing hovering over the
Yes/No, like my vision was blurring and
I could accidently slip and vote for the
recall. Next time I'm going absentee like
I say every election but then forget. I did
remember as I was leaving to shout out a
thank you to the workers there for being
there and they seemed very delighted to be
thought of.

[realFedUp]

7. Step up and punch that damn chad

Pretend it's Arnold.

[Piperay]

8. Yeah, I get like that too...

One of the seniors at the table is the mother of a girl I went to school with (yeah I still live in the old neighborhood) and everytime I come in to vote she has to give me an update on "kathy". I wasn't even friends with this Kathy, we were in the same class for like one year in about 3rd grade...geesh. That along with just the importance of the event causes my heart to be really racing by the time I get there. This time though I took the advice of alot of Democratic literature I have gotten and voted absentee, so this time no pulse pounding as far as casting a vote goes, whew. :-)

[damnraddem]

9. No. I either vote in advance by absentee, or ...

go to the courthouse and vote a week or so early.

[Nikia]

10. Not phobic

I have a little anxiety. I've had to get used to different ballots. In Wisconsin, you put it through a scanner or something and I was afraid that I'd put it in wrong. I also got confused when voting in the Wisconsin primary since they have all the candidates on the ballot but you only vote for one party where in Ohio, I requested the Democrat ballot and only Democrats were listed. I asked for help since I didn't want to have an invalid ballot. I was upset when I first went to my polling place here. My husband had voted about a half hour before I did and the old ladies were speculating whether we were married or just living together since we had the same address. They evidently didn't think that I heard them until I said "We're married."

[Delarage]

11. Yes

I worry about confronting Repuke propaganda-pushers outside the polling place (sometimes I get argumentative), then I worry about the name on the list thing, then I REALLY worry that somehow I'll fuck up and accidentally vote for a Repuke. In Delaware, we have electronic voting machines where you touch a screen. Now, on top of everything else, I'll have to worry about the machines being made by Diebold and my vote even counting in the first place. Damn.

[U2Fanatic]

14. I worry about the same thing

I use touch screen voting too, and I'm super paranoid of it being tampered with.

[carpetbagger]

12. Not here in Texas. Heck, we don't get to vote anymore, anyway.

Last general election, there was only one candidate I voted for who won, and his opponenet was a judge caught in a kickback scandal with her boyfriend whose cases she heard.

Now that the GOP can't even gerrymander the state with the dems in attendance, our primaries are about to get postponed indefinitely.

So should I move to the Northwest or back to the Mid-Atlantic?