Early, long and cumbersome voting process

Early, long and cumbersome voting process
I "Early Voted." Funny how the phrase has become a verb in our lexicon. It involved long lines and hassles with the voting machine made by Sequoia, the company contracted by the Cook County Election Board.
The touch screen system was excruciatingly slow. That slowness in registering votes is what caused my voting experience to last nearly 18 minutes.
Can you imagine taking 18 minutes to vote? I mean 18 minutes to actually vote, not including waiting in line which took 20 more minutes in a long line of 30 early voters and only four machines for voting.
But I voted. The major offices up for election were easy choices.  Below is my complete, excruciatingly long ballot.
I hate the section on Judges. I don't know many so I will only vote in favor of those I do know. The vote section on retention -- where you vote yes or no on whether a judge should be retained -- is about the only place where I can have any satisfaction. Like I am actually accomplishing something. I ALWAYS vote NO on every Judge seeking Retention, unless I know them. If I don't know them, why should I vote to keep them?
I also vote no against any judge associated with federal convicted convict felon Ed Vrdolyak, like Judge Paul  A. Karkula. why would we put any Vrdolyak judges on the bench in Cook County's judicial system? It's a travesty. 
Several are great choices like Michael Howlett Jr., and a few others I supported for retention. A lot of them are merely the relatives of the clout-heavy and the powerful, so why just surrender a vote to them and put them into office, a great salary and a golden pension?
Voting against the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Machine was fun, also. I voted straight Green Party. Not that I expect them to win. But I am not going to vote for three Democratic incumbents who have done NOTHING to address the flooding problems in Cook County and are on the ballot because they are related to some politician, like Patrick Daley Thompson. 
If who they are related to doesn't matter, then why do they insist on including their Clout Names on their ballot listing? "Daley?" Yes, one of the former mayor's relatives. I liked Mayor Rich Daley, but always felt he could have done far more for the people of Chicago than he did for himself and his family and relatives and cronies. None of the people he defeated, though, were any better. So his reign was probably the best Chicago could have ever expected.
I thought by voting early, it would be more convenient. It wasn't. But, I did get it out of the way.
-- Ray Hanania