La Casilla

"La Casilla" is the polling place for elections in Mexico.  The process for staffing las casillas is similar to jury selection in the US - you get chosen and you go serve.  If I understand correctly, each election year they choose a letter (or a couple of letters) and people who's last name begins with that letter get hunted down and told that they're serving in la casilla.  Ok, "hunted down" is an exaggeration, but that's what it feels like...
This year is election year for governors (at least in Queretaro) and federal representatives.  Once every 6 years we have presidential and senate elections, and once every 6 years (three years removed from the presidential elections) we have governor elections.  Every 3 years we vote for representatives and mayors.  It's nice because we don't have to deal with elections ever TWO years, AND commercials, flyers, and signs for candidates can't go up until the beginning of April (elections are the first Sunday in July), so we only see all that stuff for 3 months.
Anyhow, las casillas.  If you get selected, you go from 5am until whenever all the votes for your casilla are counted (voting stops at either 8 or 9pm).  About this time of year, a person from the election commission will stop by your house and let you know you are selected.  Every Mexican over 18 should have a voting card (which is our main form of ID) and your address in on that, so they know where to find you.  The only thing is, SO many people never change their address that the election commission doesn't know where to find them.  JP and I actually have our correct address on our cards, so we're a little nervous that one of us may be "it" this year.  But we'll survive!  haha!
This will actually be the first time in my life that I go to a polling place to vote - Oregon started using mail-in ballots about the time I turned 18!  So that will be a new experience.