#these issues are important

[dare-to-dm]

I voted earlier today. There were a lot of big things on the Missouri ballot other than the presidential election, such as ranked choice voting, an abortion amendment, sports gambling and increasing minimum wage. So even though I know my state is going to swing red, I don't feel like I wasted my time going to the polls.

However, there was a snafu at the polls. Basically the machine that we feed our paper ballots into jammed. I wasn't too nervous though, because I saw the poll workers there react quickly, calmly and professionally. They immediately started gathering the ballots of those who hadn't been able to put them in the machine, and assured us all that the ballots would still be counted as normal. And they replaced the ballot of the poor guy who jammed the machine, because it was completely shredded.

I reached out to my housemate who was also working the polling place to see if he could give me further insight on how our ballots would be treated. I was a little nervous that my ballot might be treated like a provisional ballot since it wasn't being counted by the machine. Provisional ballots are perfectly legitimate of course, but I just know the Republicans are going to throw up a stink about them this year and try to paint them as a source of fraud.

Anyway, my housemate got back to me to let me know that they had fixed the machine as quickly as possible. And that all the ballots that were collected during that time would be fed into the machine at the end of the polling period and counted as normal.

It's a lot easier to have trust in the system when you're not afraid to ask questions and make sure you understand the process. From what I observed, I have trust that my local polling place is being run ethically and efficiently. I am very grateful that someone I trust is directly involved in overseeing the process. This is the value of community involvement.