Election Day woes ...

Since I recently moved in with Ryan, my polling place had changed. Ryan had once joked that he wasn't going to tell me where our polling place was, well because we share different views on different political items (perhaps a topic for another post), so I was on a mission to find my polling location. I looked it up a couple weeks ago, printed off directions, and pinned it to my cork board at work. My plan was that when I left work on Election Day, I would take the directions off my cork board.

Here's the funny part .... I had this idea that Ryan and I would go vote together and then go out to dinner, but when I left for work this morning, I told Ryan that if he planned on voting on his way to work to e-mail me and let me know that way I would go right after work. Well, he did e-mail me and along with his e-mail, he sent me this link: http://pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us/ so I could find the polling place. Now I had been to this site before and already had my directions, but I was so excited to look at it again and the anticipation of going to voting was killing me! I went to the link and saw the welcome screen and typed in my zip code 55428. I was then brought to another screen: http://pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us/Street.aspx?ZipMode=True&ZipCode=55428 which prompted me for my house number 6324 and then my street name, Boone. But as I scrolled through the drop down menu I noticed all the streets were number so I quickly typed in 63rd Ave and waited for my polling place to populate, again I live on Boone. Instead of using the directions I already printed out, I decided to use the directions that just came on my screen to the polling place: FAIR OAKS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL5600 65TH AVE NBROOKLYN PARK MN 55429 .

I was so excited, I left right at 5 with my freshly printed off directions drove with my gas almost empty indicator light brightly lit to 5600 65th Ave N, take a left on Zane, right on 65th and there it should be. Except, I missed Zane and had to double back. I got to the school and enthusiastically proclaim to the man that asked me if I was registered already that I just moved to the district. He motioned me to another table where again I proudly said that I am new to the district and need to register and I whipped out my most recent Comcast Bill. The election volunteer says, "Honey, you live on Boone now and you came here?" I said yes ... oh no ... I'm in the wrong place aren't I? I think my face turned bright red and she assured me that it was ok and I wasn't the first person today that had come to the wrong location. She took me to a map and pointed to a triangular area and asked, "Do you live over here?" Trusting that she pointed in the right area, I glanced quickly and said, yes. She went back to her book and looked up my polling place and wrote down, EDGEWOOD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL6601 XYLON AVE NBROOKLYN PARK MN 55428.

So I get back into my car and drive to Xylon, mind you I'm still driving on fumes and hoping I can find this place. I didn't drive terribly out of my way to the other location. Google Maps said it was about 2 miles off of 169 and Ryan had told me our polling place was right around the corner from our apartment. I'm not very good with distances, but as I was driving the two miles past our apartment, I started to think that Ryan's idea of "real close" was not very close at all. Needless to say I did finally make it to the correct polling location and exercised my constitutional right to vote! Hooray! And I did make it to the gas station without any problems!

When I got home I told Ryan that I went to the wrong polling place and he said, but Meghan, I even gave you the name of school and address in the e-mail I sent you this morning along with the link. Yes, yes I know but I wanted to use the Poll Finder again!

I love Election Day!