Where the Heck is My Diebold AccuVote?!

I just voted. And in a nostalgic nod to the 1980s that I can appreciate on some levels, I used a pencil to color in ovals next to the candidates of my choice. But this means of doing my civic duty was completely unexpected and the whole process, decidedly underwhelming. My wife summed it up perfectly on our way out of the polling place when she exclaimed to me "that was it?"

In the months and weeks leading up to this day, the media and punditocracy was awash with grave concerns and vast theories about the extent to which electronic voting machines would wreak havoc on today's results. Rampant fraud, technical glitches and votes lost, unrecoverable because of a lack of paper back-up...or at least the specter of the potential resulting mayhem added an incremental (and badly needed) level of "interestingness" to this mid-term.

But not for me...at least not this election. I voted with the tried and true paper ballot and filled-in bubble for which the potential errors are limited to those human and analog. Wowee. Relieved to a small degree, I mostly feel like I got hosed - I know that some guy in Iowa just had more fun voting than I did!