ASM: Not quite ready for primetime

Shortly before 11:00 AM Tuesday morning, I walked into Grainger Hall on campus, approached an ASM booth and, for the second time in as many weeks, voted.

Of course, I am one of the lucky students on campus – for others, today may mark a fourth venture to the polls in two weeks. But since I think my referenda votes were counted the first time – and “think” really is the operative word, because there is no way of knowing if I was disfranchised before that election was completely tossed – and I never got around to voting in the second candidate cycle before the polls were abruptly closed, this ballot-casting venture was only my second.

Still, that is once too many by my estimation.

But to bemoan ASM's electoral incompetence – or, more precisely, the University of Wisconsin's Division of Information Technology's electoral incompetence – would be to beat a dead horse at this point.

Rather, this evening, I am merely left wondering. Will this election succeed? Might the outcomes have been different had balloting remained online? How many people will actually vote in an ASM election when they must now do so in public (I have always thought it one of those more shameful things best done in one's own home, if only because of the inherent absurdity that is ASM)? And whose idea were those adorable little “I Voted” stickers?

There is a great old Saturday Night Live sketch in which Jimmy Carter (played by a cast member) goes to a foreign nation to monitor an election. He watches to make sure that every ballot is properly deposited in a box with no intimidation or fraud. What he doesn't see is that the box, sitting on a fold-up table, has no bottom, and the ballots are slipping through a hole in the table. Below is a man, with a small fire, roasting something with the fuel of burning ballots.

Hey: Live from Madison, it's election season!