Election Day 2012

Oregon: Where you can vote by bike

In our two-party political system, you have a 50/50 chance of picking the winner, unless you waste your vote on one of those third-party contenders who never come close to winning and rarely affect the overall outcome. But after you live a few years and survive election after election, your chances of picking the winning presidential candidate each year goes down. I have voted in each presidential election since 1996, the first that I was old enough to vote in, and each time I have voted for the winner. According to a calculator I found on the Internet, I only had a 3% chance of doing just that. So how did I do it? Did I simply pick the person I think would win, because I am a bandwagon jumper? Of course not--I abhor such a thing. I simply have picked the person I think would best lead the country, and it has happened to be the one that America agreed with (sort of).

Oregon has what I feel is the best method of voting: by mail. I received my ballot on my doorstep a few weeks before the election, so I was able to ponder and research the candidates and issues from the comfort of my home, although I waited until late Monday night to make my selections permanent. Meg often defers to me to complete her ballot, but she did it all on her own this year. I took both of our ballots to the Multnomah County Elections headquarters in SE Portland on Tuesday morning on my way to the office. I composed a picture of the dramatic moment, because I needed to prove to Meg that I had indeed made her vote count (she voted for the other guy). Actually, I took the picture because I saw that The New Yorker magazine was encouraging its audience to post pictures on Google+, and they promised to publish their favorites on their blog. After making it to the office, I uploaded the picture from my G1 (worst camera on a phone ever?), made a few quick edits, and uploaded it to Google+. I may have checked The New Yorker's Google+ feed a few times during the day to see what other people were posting, but I otherwise forgot about it and carried on with my day.

After returning home from the evening (Meg was bedridden with a kidney or bladder infection), I ate my dinner in front of the tv while watching CNN with the kids. Aaron paid more attention than Edward or Ian, but they seemed happy with the idea of Obama winning a second term, probably because of my close ties to the incumbent (here and here). It was a great opportunity to help Aaron understand how the presidential election works, and he seemed genuinely interested in its outcome. I found it funny that I watched the election coverage on that dinosaur media that is cable television, when I normally ingest content exclusively from the Internet--I didn't even check my Twitter feed until after the election result was final. Meg was in relatively good spirits, considering her illness and that her candidate had lost, and we enjoyed reading the vitriolic comments on The Facebook from those who hadn't taken the loss so well. People sure can act pretty silly, and I was almost shocked that woke up the next morning and the world was exactly as it had been the night before.

As my small readership probably knows, I don't post much of anything on The Facebook. I pay attention to most of what everybody else says, but I usually don't have anything of import to say. But when I discovered Wednesday morning that the second photo in The New Yorker's favorite election-themed photos from the day before was mine--and properly attributed with my name--I couldn't resist the urge to self-congratulate myself, and I thoroughly enjoyed my 15 seconds of non-fame.