Betcha I beat you to the voting machine.
I stopped at the elections office on the first day of early voting to see how things were going. The nice ladies there convinced me to go ahead and vote instead of waiting until Tuesday.
My usual method is to go to the polls on Election Day. I do it for the same reason I like to open Christmas gifts on Christmas Day or eat turkey on Thanksgiving. It seems like the thing to do. Tradition.
The skimpy ballot took less than 30 seconds to mark - or rather, to touch, since I was among the first to use the new touch machines. I voted on the school bond referendum (we all know how that's going to turn out), and state judges. Ho-hum.
On the way back to my car I began thinking about all the questions I would like to have seen on the ballot. I had hundreds of ideas about issues we should be able to decide as binding referenda.
How about one that says any time you call a business, a real person must answer. And that person has to be American so we can understand him. How frustrating is it when you call Sprint, for example, and connect with someone in India? I admire that person's ability to speak English in an Indian accent, but I'd appreciate it if he would use his talent as a tourist in this country, not as an answer man.
I'd also like to vote on toughening the telephone no-call law. Marketing companies have called me several times lately. When I tell them my phone is on the no-call list, they say they're not selling me anything. They're just taking a survey. What's up with that? If I want to be surveyed, I'll call a surveyor.
Wouldn't you like a referendum on using tax money for its intended purpose? Gas tax money should be spent on roads, not diverted to the state's General Fund for who-knows-what. Sales taxes should be returned to the counties, not hijacked by the legislature. State and local tax money should be spent to improve the state, and local communities, not used as bait to lure companies when the folks in the commerce department won't even tell us, until it's too late, how many bribe bucks they offered a company to set up here. (Whew! That's a long sentence. Hope you made it all the way through!)
I'm not that wild about a tourism initiative to have waitresses wear smiley faces. If they care about their tips, they're going to smile anyway. How about instead voting on a law that would require public employees to smile when a resident visits their office, and act as if they're really public servants? If you growled and acted as rudely to your bosses as many public employees act toward taxpayers, you'd be out on your ear in a New Yawk minute. Let's hold public employees to the same standard. If they don't know how, they should visit the county elections office and learn from the women there. Want to vote on it?
While we're at it, let's vote against mind-numbing music blasting from car radios, obscene language assaulting our ears in public places, intersections without street signs, gas stations without price signs (the price increases so fast operators can't keep up), thunderstorms on weekends and demand that Lenoir County become a tornado-free, hurricane-free zone.
You're shaking your head at those last two, right? Why not? We expect the government to do everything else for us, except tie our shoes, so why not let them do something that has some real importance?
Lee Raynor is editor of KinstonPress.com. You can reach her on her now-operating cell phone at (252) 361-7530, or at
leeraynor@kinstonpress.com.
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