Astoundingexperience, this voting thing.



I don't know if I was more affected by the antiquity of the machinery or of the ladies in charge of the polling place.



One election official was actually on an oxygen tank. When asked how she was doing this fine Election Day, the Majority Official complained of hip pain, a cold and blurred vision. I believed her! When I presented her with a letter from the County Election Board verifying my right to vote, she temporarily lost it in the shuffle of papers on the cluttered foldout table.



To her tired eyes, she pulled up a direct mail postcard advertising the merits of Verizon DSL service, and inquired: "Now, is this yours?"



I was flummoxed by the voting machines with their long rows of switches, hospital gown curtains and sceptic florescent light. Fortunately, there was a robust cast iron display, circa 1962, illustrating the proper voting method.

After the polling places closed, I snuck down to the corner of Federal and North Ave. and plucked some stellar polital ephemera off the abandoned buildings adjacent to the notorious Garden Theater (advertised on the marquee as "All-Day Continuous XXX Adult Videos").



The posters I rescued were produced by The Partisan Project, and are beautifully simple cyan and dusty rose prints, in the best tradition of Cuban, Polish and 60's posters.