Student Elections at Berkeley are a fairly big deal, at least to the extent that the main plaza is filled with people who want you to vote for them.

So I couldn't wait to do this task. Especially because I have way too many post-it notes right now.

For a while, I was agonizing over what message to send the voters around me. Partisanship was both boring and against the rules ("no campaigning within 200 feet of booths"). So I put together a couple of vague generalities that anyone could impose their own meaning on.

I decided to follow Al Capone's famous directive in my completion of this task: Vote Early and Vote Often.

I went to about half of those dots on the map (the ones on the main campus) and "cast my ballot". Because all student voting is digital and your ballots are tied to your student ID number, I couldn't really cast multiple ballots. But this also meant that they weren't going to bother checking to see if I was actually voting. And besides, if they did, I could accuse them of trying to influence my voting and interrupt the secret ballot.

Plus, they give coupons to you after you vote, which ended up being pretty useful.

So I went up to these voting booths around campus and pretended to type things into the computers they had set up while affixing and documenting my notes.

FIRST DROP:

I went to the central, busy voting station first, right on Sproul Plaza. Here I actually cast my ballot, and noticed how I did it and about how long it took to effectively fake it later.
SECOND DROP:
THIRD DROP:

Around this time I began to have doubts about what I was up to. Was this really something that was going to do anything for anyone? Just then I look to the ground, and what should I find?

George Washington's reassuring stare. I went with my newfound confidence and continued.

FOURTH DROP:
FIFTH DROP:
SIXTH DROP:
SEVENTH DROP:
EIGHTH (and last) DROP:
Almost done, I headed to the final voting station. I checked my pockets for the final note.
Which I had left behind in my room.

I had to finish, but how?

Suddenly it came to me: THE COUPONS.
I took one of the 10% off things they had given to me and wrote out the first thing that came to mind:


Satisfied in the completion of my task, I headed back home.