On the Way to the Voting Booth...

March 20, Illinois primary elections.  Our polling place was a new location, the elementary school at the end of our street.  Since it was in the 80s that day, we decided to walk down and cast our votes.

It was so nice to see all the flowers and budding/blooming trees this early in spring!

Your typical polling place...

I carried my camera in to the polling place with me.  Ellie is a large camera, and she was hanging around my neck.  It's kind of hard to miss seeing her!  So here's the story...

We walked inside the school gymnasium and up to the tables.  The polling judges took our names and handed us our ballots.  I announced to them, "We have a first-time voter (Danny) with us today; I'm going to take his picture.  I will stand over there (way out of the way)."  One of the judges (a woman) said, "Okay."  Joseph, Danny, and Jacob each chose a booth and began to mark their ballots.  There were two other voters there, and they were almost finished with their ballots.

I walked over to my "spot" and held the camera up.  I even said, "Hey, Danny, vote slowly!"  (I had to adjust the camera settings.)  Then I pressed the shutter--snap, snap.

Immediately, an election judge (a man) got up and started walking toward me.  He said, "You can't take pictures in here!"  I told him I had announced that I was going to do so, and that another election judge said it was okay.  (At that point she interjected weakly, "I didn't know.")  The man told me, "Well, you can't.  Only press is allowed.  You can shoot from outside the building, if you want."

I told him, "Fine," while trying to be cooperative with him, and just took my ballot and voted.  I had already gotten the below shot.

The crazy thing is, is that there is no ordinance or statute against photography in the polling place in the state of Illinois.  The only thing mentioned in the statutes is that the election judges can take control of the polling place to avoid disruption.  But, we were pretty much the only voters there at the time, and I stood out of the way of any potential voters or anywhere people could have walked--it was a gymnasium!  And, if I had stood in the doorway like the one judge suggested, I would have been obstructing other potential voters from voting--which is in the statutes regarding polling places!

So goes another voting experience.  At least it was legal to shoot outside on the way home, so we stopped by the neighborhood pond and spotted a couple of turtles on some rocks.

The geese were pretty bold, paddling right up to the shoreline and even "posing" for me.

And to further calm my spirit, the Lord provided flowers along the way home for me to photograph.  That made me happy.

To top off the day, Danny and Thomas completed the upgrades to their computer so that my photography software could run more quickly.  Aren't they great?

Back to life,
Christine

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