I'm ready for this election to be over

I've never voted on election day.

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Maine set up its process based on the idea that voting should be easy and painless rather than a chore.  A huge number of people don't take advantage of this fact so on election day there are still long lines because of huge crowds, but here's what Maine does:

First time voting?  Not a problem.  No, you do not have to make two trips.  That would be pointless and just make it harder for busy people to vote.  Walk in.  Register to vote, and once that's done we'll give you your ballot.  Waited till election day to register?  That's great.  What better day than voting day to register to vote?  Mind you, you totally could have avoided the lines if you'd come a bit earlier.

Before we get to that, what if the line is really long and the polls close before you get your chance?  No problem.  That's the deadline for people to get in line.  If you were in line by the time the "polls close" you can vote, period.  Even if the line stretches into New Hampshire and/or Canada which is profoundly unlikely.

So, don't want to deal with the lines?  Totally ok.  Show up in October.  Not October first, that would be a tad early.  Show up one month or less before election day at the town hall.  You can vote.  No excuses needed.  We're here to make it easier for you.  Though don't put it off until the last few days because we need time to move shit from the town halls to larger venues that can accommodate election day crowds.  This year early voting stopped on Novemeber 3rd.

What about hanging chads, confusing ballots, things that leave no paper trail?  Are you afraid that we're not going to count your vote because we use a system set up with the express purpose of making your vote disappear, become ineligible, or otherwise not work?  What do you think we are?  Florida or Ohio?  Granted our asshole in charge is from Floridia (fucker), but we are not those states.

This is going to be easier if you went to school in Maine.  All of those tests and evaluations and such where we made you fill in the bubble next to the correct answer?  Yeah, that was practice for voting.  Why do we use this system of machine readable paper ballots?  First, the machines don't fuck up much.  It's one of the most reliable ways to count votes that has been developed.  Second, if the machines do fuck up, there's something to check.  We still have the paper ballots and can have them counted by humans if that becomes necessary.

And then you get a sticker.

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So for me, in a sense, this election is over.  Has been for a while.  I'm done.  My vote was cast.  Does this mean I missed a few October surprises like, "We might have to reopen the Clinton email case?" *pause* "Wait, no, nevermind."  Yeah, sure.

But the campaign's been going on for over a year now so unless one of the candidates dropped dead, I have serious doubts about the possibility of an October surprise really changing who I'd vote for.

Now I'm stuck waiting to see if all of the slowpokes will bring ruin down upon my country.

And oh my fucking god, we have someone who brags about having committed sexual assault versus someone who treated her emails the way past people in their job treated theirs except she didn't have the whole cover up "Oops, I deleted them all, so you'll never know what I did," thing going on.

And when it came out that person who claims he commits sexual assault habitually (and has a long list of alleged victims ready to testify that he was telling the truth about that) a lot of people pretended that they gave a damn because the election was a ways away so who cares what they say now, and once the election was closer they dropped that pretense of morality and came home to Trump.  Presumably at the far end of the home pushed up against the wall the way one might when they were in the same building as an extremely dangerous wild animal on the loose, but they're still saying they'll vote for him.

And . . . why couldn't this train wreck have been over weeks ago?

The odds are that Clinton will win (though it's not definite) but nothing will get better because the senate is a tossup (meaning no one can break a filibuster regardless of how it goes) and the House stays in "We'll obstruct everything, even our own ideas," mode.

So the best possible outcome is : Nothing improves, everything stays the same.  And the alternative is really fucking bad.  (I live in Maine, mini-Trump is my governor, trust me on this:  Really.  Fucking.  Bad.)

There's nothing good to look forward to, and on the flip side nothing but dread.

So I am so ready for all of this shit to be over.

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Also, if you're eligible to vote in US elections and you haven't yet, VOTE ALREADY!

That is all.