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Agnes Varnum is a freelance writer, film programmer and communications manager for the Austin Film Society. She is the primary contributor to doc it out and Tribeca Film Institute's Resources.

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Registrations

January 9th, 2008 • Related Posts • Tags

Today I took my car in to finally get it registered in Texas (yes, Ma, I live in Texas!) where the lady offered me a voter registration form. I asked her if I should take it with me, and she said no, that I should fill it out and she would take it for me as voter registration is in the same building. Well, you can call me cynical and I’ll believe you from here forth, because I was totally dumbfounded that this woman would wait for me to fill out this dumb form and process it for me right there when I actually came in to to do something totally different! That seemed to me above and beyond the call of duty, and I certainly didn’t expect to find that kind of service related to voting in a conservative state (Just Try Voting Here: 11 of America’s Worst Places to Cast a Ballot (or Try)). So, I guess this is a hat tip to Texas and a reminder that even though it can seem like a pain-in-the-arse to register, if you don’t do it, you won’t be able to vote in this important upcoming .

I know that there is a media circus going on around the primaries, and I’m kind of staying away from it, probably wrongly, but I just can’t help but feel that this whole thing had shied so far away from people and our day-to-day lives. It’s kind of embarrassing from a global perspective. I wonder what it looks like from the outside. Any non-North American readers out there? I’d love to hear from you!

There Are 2 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by James McNally on 10 January 2008:

    Well, I’m not non-NORTH American, but I am non-American, and to me, the American electoral system has always seemed much too complicated and non-user-friendly. As the loudest purveyors of “freedom” and “democracy”, the United States government really ought to make things a little easier for people to actually understand and participate.

    Every state seems to run like its own little fiefdom when it comes to electoral rules. As well, requiring voters to register (and indicate their party preference) seems odd to me (does it have to be done for each election? Federal, state, and local?) as well as the wildly varying technologies in use. Finally, adding hundreds of “propositions” to the ballot just intimidates and confuses people, in my opinion.

    But don’t mind me, I’m Canadian. :)

  2. Comment by Agnes Varnum on 12 January 2008:

    My experience with Canadians is they often think so much we do is silly, hypocritical, etc., which often we are, but I’m just not sure than Canada is any better – on certain things yes, but overall, we’re more similar than dissimilar.

    You don’t have to indicate a party – if you register with a party, then you can vote in their primary, which is the process we are going through now by which the national parties choose which candidate will run in the general election. Yes, each state has different primary rules, and in some ways the primary is your real chance to influence who the next president will be, but it’s not really necessary to participate in that part of the process.

    As for propositions, it’s totally out of control in California, but how else do you find out how the people feel about decisions to be made? That seems sensible to me rather than relying always on the judgment of elected officials who are making decisions based on who is funding their campaigns.

    I guess the answer is that it is a broken system. And I guess I don’t have any non_North American readers :(