4/15/2008 – Tuesday

I thought I would be writing about the workshop that I led for the German Church pastors and lay persons on Stewardship. I got back to the office after the six hour workshop, dead tired. Yet walking in my office door, I had to stop over an envelope. IT was my absentee ballot for the Pennsylvania election. I had sent an air mail letter on the 11^th of March. Starting on April 2nd, I try not to be a fool, I had looked in the mail every day through yesterday, hoping that the ballot would arrive in time to be sent back. So there on the afternoon of April 15th, tax day, there it sat on my floor and it had to be in Philadelphia by the end of business on the 18^th. What’s the chance, that my vote will be counted? Quickly marking the ballot on both sides and sprinting to the Post Office, I shelled out R358.86 [about $45] to courier mail that ballot back to Philadelphia. Now the question is whether it will arrive before the close of business on the 18^th. Somehow it seems unfair that the election is on the 22^nd and my ballot had to be in the Board of Elections by the 18^th. This is the most I’ve ever spent on an election, and it’s only the primary.

PS. On Friday the mail delivered another ballot. Is Philly copying Chicago, where they vote early and often? But then Friday is the 18^th.