For one thing, there were empty parking spaces galore at Normandie Ridge. In fact, there were only two people ahead of me to vote, which meant no line whatsoever. And when I left the building three minutes later, there wasn't a soul in sight looking to vote.
I had time to kid around with the judge of elections, Phil Crouse, about checking in with him periodically to make sure he wasn't getting bored as the day went along. No sense in him taking a mid-afternoon siesta on the taxpayer dime -- that's about what it is, too, a taxpayer dime. Poll workers are never going to get rich (or tired on days like this) doing their civic duty.
The bottom line -- even at 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, it was clear no one was going to break a sweat working hard on this election day.
Nikki Suchanic, the York County elections director, figured York County would be lucky if more than 50,000 people voted this time around. That was her best guess even before the day began, and she was expecting a light turnout.
As it turned out, Suchanic nearly hit the bullseye -- 50,410 York countians voted Tuesday and voter turnout countywide was less than 20 percent.
So, of course, I was complaining about the low voter turnout when I arrived at The York Dispatch Tuesday morning. I was told by one poll worker that there were 28
That, I surmised, was probably more than actual votes cast there by real people in the first couple hours of voting.
Ahhhh, I've been bellyaching about voter turnout for years, and it's never made a difference. I might as well be speaking to the wind.
In this country, people don't seem to take voting seriously. Never mind all the American lives lost over the years trying to protect our democracy. It just doesn't seem to matter to a lot of people, with only occasional exceptions to the rule.
I'm not sure how we could guarantee a higher voter turnout in this country unless -- and this is what an old codger suggested to me 15 years ago -- we paid people $10 to vote. Inflation being what it is, $10 might not be enough. We might have to pay $20 a vote today.
But that doesn't go down so well with me -- paying people to do what they should do without being paid.
Then one of my co-workers -- that would be Mel, who is smarter than your average bear and me, too -- mentioned that voting is mandatory in Australia. I didn't know that. But I looked it up, and by gum, she's right.
Voting is compulsory in Australia. But get this, voting is compulsory in 31 other countries, as well. But only 14 of those countries actually enforce the law -- I'll list them all here because I think this is something people, including me, should know. None of us will remember it for longer than 30 seconds, but at least we'll have known for 30 seconds that voting is compulsory in some parts of the world.
They are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Fiji, Liechtenstein, Nauru, Peru, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey and Uruguay.
But in America? No dice.
The penalties for not voting are wide ranging -- any number of things from a small fine -- the equivalent of $3 in Turkey -- to community service or imprisonment if the fines aren't paid.
In Greece and Peru, if you don't vote you're ineligible to receive goods and/or services provided by the government.
You get the idea.
I don't know if compulsory voting in this country would work or not. I doubt that it would. You can't get people to drive the speed limit, wear their seatbelts, avoid drinking and driving or pay their income taxes -- all required by law -- so I have no reason to believe everyone would vote just because it was mandated.
Hey, I've seen people line up around the block for the promise of a free doughnut and a free cup of coffee. I wonder if that would be enough to coax a vote out of them. In York County? It might.
It's a shame, but civic duty is clearly not reason enough for everyone to vote.
But I'll bet if the feds or the state General Assembly gave taxpayers a 5 percent rebate on their income taxes, most of America would try to vote twice, hoping they could get an extra 5 percent deduction.
Sad, but true. The trick is to figure out what motivates us, I guess.
Columns by Larry A. Hicks, Dispatch columnist, run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: lhicks@yorkdispatch.com.
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