How did it go?

I�m curious if anyone had any problems at the polls?

My polling place is right around the corner from me. I walk my dog past it every day. In the primary elections, the dog went in with me (hell I was the only one in there voting at the time). Today I left him at home. It was fairly crowded, but not overly so. It was still early and I was number 94. I didn�t have any problems, but one of the judges is my next door neighbor and I know most of the rest of them by sight. The judges told me that they were having a very good turn out so far.

One of my co-workers lives in a minority neighborhood and he reported that there was a long line at his polling place this morning.

I'll be curious to see how my polling place is doing. I have never had a line of more than 10 people in front of me in the two cities that I have lived in since I have been voting (I'm 36 so I've been voting a while). Every election there are news reports that there are lines 3 hours long in different parts of the city but in my areas there are never lines but the turn out is very good.

How do they determine how large the area is for each polling location? Does it have anything to do with wealthy neighborhoods vs. poor neighborhoods? My polling station is in an affluent neighborhood so maybe there is more money to have more polling stations? Anyone know?

Jemison

I went early and was shocked by the line and even the traffic mess created by those trying to get to the polling place. It's usualy empty, and I've never had to wait before, but this line was about 250 people deep when I got there about 8am.

They had started two lines - one for checking in and getting a blue card, and another to actually vote. I wondered how easy it would have been to take my blue card to Kinkos and make 100 copies, but the total number of voters was tallied was blue cards were handed out, so theoretically only the number of actual check-ins could be counted.

There was also a new system in place of computerized voting with touch screens. Nice enough, easy to see and understand, but there were already some machines having problems. One of the officials was going 20 deep in line and asking people first if they were good with computers, and second if they wanted to use the "slow" machine. Interestingly, the folks he picked to ask were all under 30-ish, and looked somewhat modern in dress and hairstyle. I wondered if he was picking people who looked likely to vote in a certain way for their votes to be "lost" in a malfunctioning machine, but he didn't pick me in my Birkenstocks and tie-dye so I felt less paranoid He would let you cut in line, but couldn't guarantee you'd finish up any faster than the 20 people in front of you. I declined the offer to jump ahead as I'd prefer to use a functioning voting machine, and I was a bit skeptical of the thing and how long it would remain functioning if it was that slow.

All in all it went faster than I expected, and was less vocal than expected. People weren't saying much about the party they were voting for, and it seemed almost a forced silence on political issues which has never been the case when I went to vote - a political "don't ask don't tell" to keep the peace, I guess.

Double post, so I'll make it good for something....

I'm outside of Washington DC in Northern VA, btw... Usually a rather politically charged place to vote as many work for the government and there are families of justices, politicians, political staff in the neighborhoods around me.

Here at the university I attend, I've heard many say they tried to go vote, but were unable to due to the long lines, and a few people saying "I might try later."

Seems we were unprepared for the turnout this time around. Glad to see it, though.

[edit on 2-11-2004 by RedBalloon]

Voting went very well for me. It was at the school I take my kids to, so It wasn't even out of the way. They had 4 lines based on the first letter of your last name. I only had to wait in line behind 1 person. I showed them my voter's registration card and a picture ID. Then signed on the line and took a voting card.

The concept was quite simple. Each candidate had an arrow pointing to their name but a half inch piece was missing from the arrow. Using a provided marker you finish drawing the arrow to your choice and them feed the card into a machine that counts it. The card must have been designed for the elderly. It was at least 14" X 14". A guy wearing a voting judge badge watched every move made. The whole process took only 5 min.

It took about 35 minutes, total. Usually it takes about 5-10 minutes total. At 10:30 is was #540. Usually I'm about 125.
The room really wasn't equipped for the large numbers, but it was handled well.
I saw one guy trying to vote from another area and one lady who had an unused absentee ballot (which she no longer had) try to vote. The out of area guy was processed and the lady told to produce her absentee ballot if she wanted to vote.

It was VERY obvious some had never voted before, becayuse they didn't know to fill out the little slup. These were not all young folks, either.

I'm voting after work today, and I'll post how it went aftwerwards...but I can say that I have witnessed first-hand the botched election procedures of Florida...

During the last local elections, about a month or so ago, I was a registered democrat but they handed me a republican ballot...I told them - hey, you gave me the wrong ballot!...They had me stand around and wait for about 5 minutes...no one knew what to do or why I should be complaining over something so "pety" - they had me show my driver's license, social security card - and...ooohh...oops...we gave you your father's ballot - he's only 25 years older than you...and my father had voted prior to my arrival, so he might have gotten a democratic ticket...he probably didn't know any of the candidates, so it didn't make a difference to him!

*sighs*...Can't wait till I see what happens later....

Well I voted earlier and it was very nice the people working in the place was very friendly because it was last week we have to sign an affidavit then find our names in the books then show proof of indentity then another person look for our name in the computer then she took the affidavid then we were given a littler computer card and with that we loaded the computer and the instructions were clear and easy, so I think the whole experience was very pleasant.

I avoided the polls and voted by mail. Well, I didn't actually mail the ballot, I dropped it off at the election office. Being somewhat agoraphobic this was my only option. I can't see why anybody would want to trouble themselves by going to vote in person...

- Attero

One thing that happened to me was odd.

After i showed my DL and signed the roll-book, a gentleman announced my name and 2 ladies off to the side conferred over a seperate registration book.

A minute later as I approached the booth, I again heard my name spoken out loud.

An audit is one thing, but it seemed odd to me.

Just an idea, folks... because RedBalloon said the voter turnout in Northern VA seemed to be pretty good... maybe we might want to start a thread where people could report unusual voter turnouts?

Or has it already been done?

Geez, I thought that was what this thread was all about...that is what I posted here anyhow.
This place will get way out of control if we start too many threads that almost say the same thing? IMHO,

no problems in brooklyn, NY...not too busy, took me about 20 minutes

DontTreadonMe - re-reading the thread... you're right. I guess I need stronger coffee today.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
Geez, I thought that was what this thread was all about...that is what I posted here anyhow.
This place will get way out of control if we start too many threads that almost say the same thing? IMHO,

We already have four threads of roughly the same scope:

First: www.abovetopsecret.com...
Second: www.abovetopsecret.com...
Third: www.abovetopsecret.com...
Latest: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Personally I say we go with Nerdling's thread.

My voting experience in Virginia was quick and simple. Only took about 5-10 minutes. I was number 303 on the roll call paper and number 717 to turn in my ballot. This was around 11am.

My sister in Harrisburg, PA said they were reporting waits of an hour and a half. It only took her about a half hour to vote though.

-swinters

Well I voted in Bowie Md, jsut outside DC and asside from one of the Voter Nazis not comprehending that the Letter "Q" comes before the letter "R" and woulden't let me in the correct line untill I sang half the ABC song too her everything went smoothly and the people in the lines seems to be in a good mood all in all.

Now, that said... I work in DC a few blocks fromt eh whitehouse. There were a couple of cops out front of the building talking bout a group of Bush and Kerry supporters going at one annother and they are expecing several fights to break out.. that was about 15 min ago.

Whoever wins.. may the gods help us keep this country together.

Wraith

I had zero issues voting this morning. I arrived at the polls just as they opened (around 7am est) and was pleasently surprised to see a bit of a line.

i think all together the whole process took me about 20 minutes, which still allowed me to snag my morning coffee and still arrive to work on time.

My husband I just got home from voting. There was no line getting in but we had to wait for a machine. I had minimal problems with the machine flipping pages on me but my husband was VERY angry with what happened to him.

He is a perfectionist and when he clicked on President Bush he double and triple checked that it was marked. When it got to the final preview page which we were not told there would be, it had KERRY selected! It took him several minutes to change it to Bush.

We spoke to someone when we left the polling place and told them what happened. They said that they warn everyone to review the vote before pushing the red button to send their votes. That's not true. The only thing they say is to wait to push the red button until you have completed the entire ballot. They don't tell you that there is a review page at the end.

What is making us so angry is that somehow there is a glitch in the machine so Kerry is showing up even though you vote for Bush and it's very confusing to fix once Kerry is on the preview page. Kerry was the only Democrat on the ballot that my husband didn't vote for which is why I think my husband had a problem and I didn't.

Even though this was brought to the attention of the poll representative we were blown off and told that it was not a problem.


Jemison

I just got back from my polls.

It was at Dick Scobee Elementary School. Not very crowded. But it was mid-day.

There were not those touch screen electrnic voting machines. We were handed a paper ballot, where you fill the bubbles. Then you slide the sheet in a counter machine. Diebold was no where to be found, thankfully. So, no questionable machines here.

It was nice enough. We are having our govornors election at the moment, plus one for Senator, plus our rep, plus a bunch of state and local positions too, so I spent alot more time pondering the local issues and candidates than i did the national ones. The national vote was a no brainer for me. Badnarik, baby.

But over all, I noticed no suspicous activity, the ladies manning the voter registration were polite and friendly. Thankfully, because of Senators like Patty Murray and a total rejection of electronic voting and chad machiens here, it seems the voting process here will be alot cleaner than elsewhere, from what i hear.