I just voted, even though pundits and statisticians have proven fairly definitively that my particular vote won’t matter. My district has had a Republican congressman for 30 years and his hand-picked heir is likely to win, and I don’t live in one of the 6 states all the news organizations tell me will decide control of the Senate. I voted because it’s the right thing to do, and because if I don’t vote, I lose the moral right to complain about the idiots in power (and anyone who knows me knows I love to complain.)

But why I hate voting isn’t the issues, or the parties, or the polarized electorate, or the aforementioned futility of my particular involvement. It’s the process. The process makes my blood boil.

For months, we are subjected to constant attack ads, literally he-said-she-said finger pointing about which candidate is the bigger idiot for siding with whichever other idiots are in power.

For weeks, the candidates clutter the countryside with illegally placed campaign signs that aren’t just an eyesore, but can seriously impede traffic safety simply by blocking drivers' view of oncoming traffic. (Though to be fair, this has gotten much better in Fairfax County over the last few years…I don’t know how they got the candidates to stop, but I’m glad they did it).

I work at home, in my basement. When the doorbell rings, I answer it. Which means I have to interrupt my work, walk upstairs, and attend to whoever is at the door. And then get annoyed when it’s just someone stumping for a politician I don’t care about (or even one I do like). And then they get annoyed when I’m annoyed at them – as if they weren’t the ones being rude by disturbing me in the first place.

Then, finally, election day. That’s the worst.

Rather than experiencing relief that it’s all about to be over, my annoyance level spikes to new highs. First, I drop the kids off at their school (for school-provided daycare while the school is closed for election day). There’s no way to get through the front door without running a gauntlet of partisan party representatives handing you their “Sample Ballots” (which conveniently exclude all other parties – not actually a sample at all, but I suppose we’re used to the lies). Sure, there’s a “50 foot exclusion zone” around the entrance, but it’s not possible to park within that zone. So all they have to do is hover around the perimeters and they get you.

But at this point I’m not even there to vote – I’m just there to drop off my kids. (In fact, two Republican candidates even had people camped out in front of the school on Back to School night this year, so even then we weren’t able to escape their harassment). Why the school system doesn’t kick these people off their property is beyond me. (And don’t tell me it’s because of First Amendment rights – politicians can still express their views…they just shouldn’t be allowed to interrupt voters on their way to the polls).

It’s even worse today, because I’ll have to sneak past the same people for parent/teacher conferences this afternoon.

Then when I actually do go to vote, I have to navigate a different set of politicians' antagonists (because my polling place is in a different school). And I have to present an ID to vote, because there’s an astronomically small chance that someone could be trying to vote illegally (which Never Ever Happens. Seriously.) And after I present my ID, the poll workers ask me to tell them my address – as if it weren’t already printed on my ID. Somehow, going to vote where the poll workers can’t even read the address on my ID doesn’t fill me with confidence.

(No, I know it’s because they want to be sure that I really know my address and am not simply taking someone else’s identity. It’s still bullshit. Next year, I’m reading the address from my ID before I even hand it to them. See what happens then.)

So by the time I’m done, I’ve been harassed by politicians on the radio, on the TV, in my mail, at my front door, on the way to drop off the kids, on my way to conferences with my kids' teachers, on the way to actually vote, and then while voting, I’m told pretty clearly that the state doesn’t think I’m actually me and am trying to fraudulently cast a ballot. All this after being told again and again by, well, Science, that my vote really doesn’t matter.

It’s amazing that anyone votes at all