Voting in the 49th Ward is Fun

RPKelly has left a new comment on your post "The 49th Mental Ward of Chicago": Honestly, Tom, I think you're being kind of a jerk here. Amy DID question authority. She DID fight back. She made a huge ruckus over the stupidity of this situation. She drew attention to the idiocy and got the problem fixed. The poll workers were the morons, not Amy. Might I suggest that if she had been casting her vote for Mitt Romney rather than Barack Obama, you'd be taking a different approach to this story? Response: I don't care who she voted for, that's really not a factor. Here's what Amy told the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 5: "I'm incredibly angry, and I feel so dumb," said Amy Carlton, 38, of Rogers Park. "And I am not a dumb person." Now, if Amy really DID question and fight authority, but fell for the bizarre explanation anyway, then she actually IS a dumb person. The Trib quotes continued: "Carlton said all the judges at the polling place insisted that they had been trained in the use of the 'magic' pens." So, after the judges TOLD HER that they had been trained for, as she quoted them, "magic pens," she voted with one anyway? O-mi-god. The fun continues in the Trib article: "I've voted before," Carlton said. "I was thinking, 'This is crazy,' but when someone in authority insists, what are you supposed to do?" Okay, she initially said something akin to, "Really? This pen will really, really work?" And a judge said something akin to, "Why yes! You see, Amy, it's a MAGIC pen! It'll work just fine!" I'm not sure where the fighting authority aspect comes in to play, however. But telling us that Amy "drew attention to the idiocy" is a bit like saying that someone who walked in front of a speeding bus has drawn attention to a dangerous intersection. The poll workers may indeed have been morons. But those morons convinced Amy to use a "magic pen" to cast her vote.