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Texas has this unique custom called "early voting." Basically, the polls are open and staffed for about 2 weeks before each election day, allowing those who've already made up their minds, and want to render last-minute political ads even more useless than they usually are, to vote ahead of time and get it all over with.

My wife and a group of her friends make working the early voting polls a group activity. Usually this means about two weeks of sitting around yakking and playing dominos (usually Chickenfoot) at county expense, since early voter turnout is normally extremely low; ten people is a busy day.

Not this year, in this area. In addition to the presidential election, there's a contentious light rail proposition on the ballot, and as a result they've been continually busy from the first 7:00 AM opening on a Saturday. They're really annoyed at not being able to get in any Chickenfoot. This is slightly, but not totally, compensated for by a few notable experiences.

For example, there was the elderly man who turned around from his ballot in the voting booth, looked sheepishly at one of the clerks, and said:

"I know you're going to think I just crawled out from under a rock, but--is George Bush a Republican?"

That was one heckuva big rock.

Then there was the woman who, after being tutored by her husband on mechanics--be sure to fill in the all circles completely, etc.--went and voted, then held up her ballot in front of the ballot box, asking "Is this the way I'm supposed to put it in?"

Clerks are definitely not supposed to look at completed ballots, of course, but she held it up, so the clerk couldn't help but see that indeed, she'd followed all instructions to the letter. She filled in all the circles completely.

*All* the circles.

The one for Bush, and the one for Gore, and Buchanan, and Nader, and ...

The final incident so far occurred at another voting place. My wife heard of it on the clerk's grapevine.

This young woman came in to vote wearing a T-shirt with VOTE GORE very large on the front.

"Sorry, M'am, no political advertising is allowed within 50 ft. of the polling place. That does include T-shirts."

This is a Gore supporter in Texas, right?

Yup. She took it off.

They told her it would be OK to wear it inside out, so she put it back on that way.

Since I know you're wondering: No, she wasn't wearing a bra.

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