I Cast My Matanuska Electrical Association Ballot

Back when Judy and I were having our first house built, over on the west end of Fairview Loop Road, Matanuska Electrical Association had me come in and sign on for the new meter. At the time I filled out the form, I was still recovering from an injury to my left hand. It had been crushed when a salvage operation in the Whittier Harbor went terribly awry, and I had to smash a big glass door with my left hand to get a kid out of a sinking boat.

I'm left-handed, so my already awful handwriting was looking worse than that of a busy doctor filling out his hundredth prescription of the morning.

Yesterday morning, I decided to go into the MEA headquarters in Palmer, and take a look at my signature card. When one votes in an MEA election, the person voting has to sign the outside of the ballot envelope, which has to be mailed to MEA from the post office.

I'm glad I went in. As you can see, my signature now -- the lower one -- is very different from my 1985 one.

The customer service representative helping me look at the signature card, and filling out a new one, Suzie Deuser, did just that - helped. I told her, "I'm not concerned about you and the people down here deal with my card, but I don't trust the jerks upstairs. At all."

She sort of smiled, saying, "do you want to come back and see how we keep the 'jerks upstairs' out of it?"

I took up Suzie's offer. She brought me back to the two rooms and a closet where about eight people were going through incoming ballots, comparing each against the cards. About 700 were being dealt with Wednesday. Most people were paid employees of MEA, but the three who dealt with questioned signatures were volunteers from the community.

I asked the volunteers how many of the 700 had been questioned so far on Wednesday. I was told that five had been. As we talked, a sixth one was brought over. They asked me if I wanted to judge the issue along with them. I did.

The signature on the envelope was certainly far different from the one on the signature card. We discussed the "capital "C" and "D's." The ballot was rejected. I concurred.

Thanks for the tour, Suzie Deuser. I'm reasonably satisfied that what I saw was being responsibly handled. I was told be a couple of people that balloting is happening on about a normal level for an MEA election.

On the way to more errands over in Wasilla, I stopped by Enstar. On the way out, I took pictures of one of the signs Dewey and Judy made in our shop last week.

My next stop was at the Wasilla post office, where I got my mail and mailed my MEA ballot, casting for Kinkaid, Burchell, the bylaw change, and weighed in on the silly advisory votes.