Election Returns --- Finally!
Burbank's experiment with an all mail-in election seemed to work well --- until it came to counting the ballots.
It was midnight on Election Day before the results were posted on the City's cable channel. That's five hours after the election officially closed. Now five hours may not sound like much, especially after the 2000 Presidential Election, but it is an incredibly long time to wait for local election returns.
In the old days, when we all voted on the same day at polling places around town, the returns would trickle in to City Hall. Candidates and their supporters would crowd around the foyer and watch as the returns were projected onto the wall. It would be 1 or 2 precinct reporting, then 10 or 20, until finally all 42 had come in and the winners were announced. The whole process was televised on channel 6, so even those of us at home could get on all the drama.
Instead, this year we were treated to hours of a TV screen filled with an inane announcement that the election result would be posted soon. They could have at least shown us pictures of the people in the foyer, or run some of those public service shows. But no, we got hours of the stupid sign.
I didn't get home from my teaching job until after 9 p.m. I really wanted to get to bed early, but my sense of civic responsibility keep be up waiting for those returns. I was about to throw in the towel at midnight, when I checked one last time. Finally, at long last, the final results were there.
Don't know what went wrong, if anything. But I do know that I miss the old days when the posting of returns as they were counted added to the drama and excitement of participating in the electoral process.
--- Stan
Posted On: 2/23/05