Free stuff from Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Ben & Jerry's for voters on election day? NOT...?!!

AlSto told me he had heard about the illegality of giving away food and other goods to voters in election day promotions. i looked around a little bit and found THIS on gawker.com, of all places...

turns out that places may be welcome to give stuff away to anyone who asks for it...but doing otherwise may be considered VOTER BRIBERY. or not.

early voting experience in Orange County, CA

so, AlSto and i early-voted today...but that actually meant we voted early on the last possible day we could vote early in Orange County.

we went to the Main Place Mall in Santa Ana. D'OH! HUGE line. it really only turned out to be an hour wait, from arrival to when we gave our name. i'm sure many people got the same treatment: long line; requests for i.d. even though only first-time voters were technically required to supply i.d. as proof of residence (in fairness to the lady typing in our name, i'm sure she was just tired of asking over and over, "K-I-G...what? Could you slow down? Okay, one more time, K-I-T...??!"); broken equipment, etc. etc.

i did spend nearly the entire time chatting with a sweet older Vietnamese couple, and a librarian from the Placentia school district named Joy. the interesting thing was, to talk about 'meaningful' stuff with another person you barely just met, while trying to keep one's own political inclinations to oneself. i was, after all, in Orange County!

oh yeah, and we went by the Central Orange County Democrats' HQ on 2020 Chapman Ave. in the city of Orange, before we went to vote, to pick up a NO ON PROP. 8 lawn sign. all was pretty quiet there, but there were nice workers, in any case. and a man, sitting in a car, who AlSto was convinced was a cop.