FOR OUR AVERAGE JOSE, A COMEDY OF ERRORS ON ELECTION DAY

By Juan Montoya
When our friend Jose (not his real name) decided to get out of the house and vote in the Tuesday primary runoff elections, he showed up at Pct. 38 (Sharp Elementary) to cast his vote in the afternoon, walked in to the room, and sauntered over to the table with the precinct judge and the parties' poll watchers.
"Democrat or Republican?," asked the precinct judge.
"Independent," Jose answered.
"They just started laughing," he said later. "Are they supposed to make fun of you or what?"
After he was told that the runoff election was only for the Republican and Democrat candidates who hadn't won their elections outright in May, he opted to take the Democratic ballot, miffed at having those assembled in the room laugh at him.
On the first decision for the U.S. Senate runoff between Paul Sandler and Grady Yarborough, he stumbled.
"Is Grady a man or a woman?" he asked aloud.
This infuriated the Republican election judge who snapped at him with a churlish "You mean to tell me you haven't even done the research on the candidates before you vote for them?"
This stopped our hero dead in his tracks and he looked at the woman incredulously.
"I thought they were there to help you," he said. "I didn't expect to get scolded by some woman I didn't even know. The Democratic guy told me Grady was a he."
Things went from bad to worse for our hero.
"Then I got to the state school board of education and I saw Ruben Cortez's name," said Jose. "I had friends who went to school with him and they told me he had dropped out. How could he be running for the state school board? I was confused. Outside the school fence there were dozens of his lawn signs up and down the sidewalk. There were even some in front of the parking lot at Sharp. I didn't see any others. They were real busy."
To make matters worse, Jose said the Democratic Party poll watcher hovered over his shoulder urging him in a harsh whisper to "Vote Democrat. Vote Democrat."
"Is he supposed to do that?" asked out friend. "Is he supposed to tell me what party to vote for? Isn't that against the law?"
When we tried to explain that if he was voting for Sandler or Yarborough he was already voting in the Democratic runoff, he shrugged and said the experience at the polls had left him flustered.
"Here I make the time to go vote, they laugh at me when I ask about the Independents, I get scolded by a mean little old Republican woman who makes me feel bad because I didn't research the candidates and the Democratic party guy is trying to pressure me to vote for the Democrats," said Jose. "I was stressed by the time I got our of the room. When I left no one said a word. It was weird."