Extremely. Grumpy. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Do you know what makes me really really grumpy?

Opening the election materials and finding a FOUR page ballot that contains SIXTEEN freaking ballot measures that I have to vote on. I remember when I lived in NJ when ballots were ONE page long. That is how long they should be. A max of two pages, with maybe a half a dozen measures at most. But SIXTEEN!?

And for f#$'s sake (yes, I'm really (really) grumpy, as you can see), we just had an election seven months ago, in which, I believe, I had to wade through seven propositions, and I thought that was pushing it. But damnit. SIXTEEN? If I had an extra hand, I still wouldn't have enough fingers to count how many damn measures/propositions there are.

Has the state legislature no mercy? I know I'm complaining about a privilege that I shouldn't be complaining about, and I'd take this over being a citizen of many despotic regimes and value the democracy and freedoms that come with being a U.S. citizen, but grumble, grumble, grumble. Complain. Complain. Complain. Blog. Blog. Blog.

Sixteen freaking ballot measures. That's
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
(in case you can't visualize how long a list of sixteen items is, since I'm sure other state's ballots are much shorter.)

New Jersey has a mere two questions on their ballot.
Montana has three.
Arizona appears to have eight.
I don't have time to look up every state, but does anyone live in a state that comes anywhere close to sixteen freaking ballot measures? (Including local measures.)

Ok, and do you know what makes me even grumpier than seeing SIXTEEN freaking measures I have to make time to wade through, read, look up the pros and cons and who supports/who doesn't, and then make a decision on?

Seeing the same. damn. proposition on the ballot for three elections in a row. It's the parental consent/wait period for minors who want abortions. This proposition has reared its ugly head three times, and each time, it has been struck down by voters. The state barely denied passing it the last time, which I find quite disturbing, but basically, we voted that minors shouldn't have to seek parental consent to get an abortion. I'm pretty sure we also voted against a waiting period requirement, too.

And now, it's back on the damn ballot again. Again. Because some chastity ball-going idiot got enough signatures from his right wing friends to get this on the ballot for the fourth. freaking. time. How many times do we have to vote NO on this for people to give up?

And for the record, I don't understand what sane parent wouldn't vote against requiring parental consent and wait periods. I mean look. It's not that I want my (hypothetical) kids sleeping around and getting pregnant at 13. If I were a parent of a teenager, I would hope that my kids be careful enough to not get pregnant, and if they aren't, I'd hope they'd feel comfortable enough to tell me. But if they aren't, I'd rather have them get a legal, safe abortion behind my back than have them die because they went to some illegal, unregulated abortion-via-coat-hanger clinic.

Oh, and there's a proposition for banning same-sex marriages. I feel like I've seen this silly one before, too.

It's funny that this state gives off this aura of being so progressive, and yet, we have all of these measures that really ought to be non-issues. Aren't we supposed to be the state that is the paragon of liberal ideals? Why the hell are we voting on gay marriages and minors getting abortions once again?

If our voices keep being ignored and undermined thus, then what we have in this state (which, btw, is home to the largest population) is not a healthy democracy. Do the rest of the states have any idea how dysfunctional voting is in this state?

Ok, I now need to go calm myself down enough to put in 2 hours of linear algebra studying.