Vote!!

So my official ballot arrived in the mail on Friday. This is the first time I will be voting as an Oregonian. I have had the pleasure of voting in other states such as California, New York, North Dakota and now Oregon. Things are done a little differently here in Oregon.

I asked at school if we were going to be allowed to miss the first hour of class so that we could go to our local polling place and cast our votes. The whole class looked at me like I was smoking crack. What?? They said, duh, you mail it. What?? Um, hello, this is my first time voting in Oregon and every other state I've ever voted in, you go to a polling place and vote. Oh ok, so they understood. I was kind of surprised by this method. I mean, anybody could steal mail, even if it is a federal crime. Just recently, I swear, someone was stealing my Netflix movies and watching them and then returning them. (In my apartment building you leave your outgoing mail out above the tenant mailboxes) It's usually a 2 day turnaround from sending in the movie to getting the next one. Well the last 2 weeks it was taking 5 days to get to the Netflix distributing center which is right here in Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland. So that's my theory and now I walk them over to the mailbox on the corner.

When I told the Italian about having to mail in my ballot, he laughed and said, oh, that would never work here in Italy. All the ballots would be stolen. I'm sure the same thing would happen in Mexico. So I'm a little uncomfortable about putting my ballot in the mail, but I guess I have no choice.



I thought it was kind of funny that there is a "secrecy envelope" that goes within the outer envelope. I mean, is this really going to deter someone who wants to take a peek at my ballot?? If they've opened the first one, why stop there, right??

It took me a couple of hours to research all the measures on the ballot and the politicians running for local government. It was pretty interesting. Did you know Oregon has a cap on the tax deductions you can claim on your tax return??!! It's only $5,500. As a student and someone who is paying medical bills, I find that a bit hard to swallow. So you can guess which way I voted on that one. I wonder if I can claim my IRA losses?? Anybody know?? So my ballot is filled out and I will walk it over, along with my Netflix movies, to the mailbox tomorrow afterschool.

I did something kinda evil too. You see, the Italian and I like to play jokes on each other and so I thought I'd rub it in a little (remember, he's a Republican sympathizer) and took a picture of me filling in the little circle next to the Obama/Biden choice. I emailed it to him with a big I LOVE YOU written in. Ah, bipartisan love conquers all, doesn't it??