Democracy in Action

I started a post a few weeks ago, but my pictures from Makapu'u Point kept failing to upload. I got frustrated and quit. I'll try that later, but for now I'll just tell you a bit about the caucuses.

It's no secret that I'm all about civic duty and voting and the political process, but I was particularly intrigued this year because of the close race in the democratic candidate race as well as the concept of a caucus, as I had only voted in primary states in the past. (Incidentally, I believe this is now the fifth state in which I've been registered to vote). From what I had read about Iowa caucuses, I had developed this fantasy about people debating in community center rooms of folding chairs and fluorescent lights with a quick deterioration to profanity and violence. They don't have that in the boring primaries where you touch the computer screen and go on your merry way. I couldn't have been more excited.

In order to vote in the democratic caucus, you had to be a member of the Hawaii Democratic Party, something of which I'm not a big fan, but I decided to suck and up and do so. Of course, I was immediately frustrated as, when you go on the website to do so, it was full of inflammatory statements and hyperbole, pretty much saying 'let's expose McCain for the fraud that he is' and other crap. Seriously? Dude, I may not agree with his politics, but relax with the personal and petty attacks.

Anyway, I suspected a significant turnout because of A) the aforementioned close race B) the general enthusiasm for politics and this race that had already been seen in other states C) the fact that Barack Obama was born and raised here, and still has family and many supporters in the islands and D) nothing happens here and it's something to do. Apparently, though, the organizers were not smart enough to predict the attendance.

I waited in line with hundreds of other people. While I had already been registered to vote since I arrived here and registered (painfully) as a democrat for a week or so, there was no prerequisite to do so, so many people had to do one or both of those things upon arrival. Were there separate lines for those actions? Of course not. After about two hours in line, I got to the school cafeteria to find absolute mass chaos. I waited in another line to be told my district number (which, if I would have know that's what the line was for, I could have skipped, as I already knew that). Then I was directed to a picnic table with that designated number. She asked for my name and address (but not for identification). I told her both, she saw that I wasn't on the list, she asked if I was registered, I confirmed that I was, then she decided she would just use the honor system and give me the post-it note that I was to present at yet another table to actually cast a ballot. Nice. Finally, I get there to find a dozen or so people crowded around a young man throwing small pieces of paper at him. Apparently they had now run out of official ballots and we were asked to write our candidate's name on a provided scrap of legal paper and give it to the kid who was stuffing them in a manila folder. Seriously. That was it. No confirmation of who I was, that I had registered, that I was indeed a resident of that district, and, most importantly, that I was only giving him one ballot. Seriously, it was so crowded and chaotic that I feel strongly that I could have sat down and written someone's name on 50 different sheets of paper and gotten every one of them submitted as valid votes.

While I'm more inclined to categorize this as 'quaint Hawaii' rather than corrupt, I'm old school in that I feel pretty strongly that in 2008 we should have a system that carefully allows only registered voters whose ID's are checked to cast one official ballot for their candidate of choice. Not so much. My cynical self was about ten times more cynical at the conclusion of the evening. Point is? My enthusiasm for the caucus quickly deteriorated to the feeling that there were 2.5 hours of my life that I was never getting back. And there wasn't even a single fistfight as I had hoped. Can't wait to see what the November elections are like here. I'm picturing a show of hands, and then we all go out for mai tais.