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Voting Experiences ~ Election 2004

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2004 Nov. - 2005 Jan.: Free Expression... (ARCHIVES): Voting Experiences ~ Election 2004 users admin

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Archive through November 02, 2004Conejo25 11-02-04  10:42 am
Archive through November 02, 2004Calamity25 11-02-04  2:12 pm
Archive through November 02, 2004Pamy42 11-02-04  8:00 pm
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Melfie1222
Member

07-29-2002

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 8:02 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I got my "I voted" sticker too. I am in Washington and at least in my county almost half of the voters vote by mail... I have resisted signing up for that because I actually like the part about going to the voting booth and voting in person.

Watching ABC earlier they had a map of what areas of the country use what type of voting method at the booths, sort of interesting, I think they said there were five main methods. In my county we use a marker to fill in the oval, then the ballot gets scanned through a machine.

Pamy
Member

01-02-2002

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 8:04 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
We have 'Eslates' electronic voting machines and they worked very well...we had paper ballots if anyone requested them....no one did while I was working

Herckleperckle
Member

11-20-2003

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 8:25 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
LOL, Juju. I meant to comment on Jbean's astonishment about the old lady, too.

Jbean, you could have been talking about my mother! Really. She's 78 now and calls me each election to brag that she was 4th in line or 2nd in line, etc. She takes pride in it! (Don't ask . . . drives me crazy!!) She behaves the same way behind the wheel of her car, too, unfortunately!

Schoolmarm
Member

02-18-2001

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 8:42 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Number 684 at noon today...no lines. We had two precincts voting at the church and I got in the wrong "line" (make that to the wrong table) at first. I live in the country outside a very small town. Precincts 2 and 3 were voting at the church. No clue where precinct 1 votes!

Even though I grew up in Illinois, this is the first time I voted in Illinois. I went to college in Iowa before I turned voting age. I was surprised at how few candidates were on the ballot, and even more shocked that I didn't recognize ANY of the names for our Congressional race or for the state offices. WHAT???!!!! No campaigning?

Anyway, the only candidate I felt good about voting for was Barack Obama for US Senate. He's already been declared the winner with 81% of the vote! I also felt pretty good about voting NO to retain one of our judges. CRAP, I'm back in Illinois, home of corrupt politicians, bribery, dead people in Chicago voting multiple times, and the former governor going to jail. "Yippee!"

Because of all of the corruption in the last administration (George Ryan), I had to take an online "ethics training" or they would probably withhold pay. HEY, don't anyone go buying me lunch or anything. LOL!

Wish we had touch screens, but we filled in bubbles with a pen and slid the ballot into an electronic counter.



Cathie
Member

08-16-2000

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 8:50 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I voted on the last day of early voting last week and it was sooooo crowded. I went to our neighborhood sub-courthouse around 6:15pm, voting closed at 7:00. Traffic was backed up for a mile or more, parking lot was packed and a line of people snaked out the door and around the building. Inside, the line broke into 4, which then had about 10 touch screens for each of those lines. It was awesome to see so many voters there. In our county there are 918,000 registered voters and over 300,000 voted early. I was especially glad today that I had voted early--we had a cold rain all day long...

Egbok
Member

07-13-2000

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 9:08 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I just got home from voting. I had to report to a church gymnasium and it was very organized and the whole process ran smoothly.

Luckily I didn't have to worry about hanging chads, as I used a type of sponge marker to mark my votes. However I was ready to make sure all my punches were clear through and through...LOL!!

I hope by the next Presidential election I'll be voting by touchscreen like landi!


Froggiegirl621
Member

02-14-2003

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 9:21 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I voted for the first time ever today. I was #280, and that was at 6:30pm. I think I belong to a pretty small district of less than 400. Everyone I spoke with about the election today kept telling me about the great voter turn-out. One lady I spoke with said she was #354 at 9am! That amazes me. Here in my part of PA we use paper ballots and fill in the ovals with pencil. I felt like I was back in school, lol.

HAPPY ELECTION DAY!!!


Twinkie
Member

09-24-2002

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 9:36 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hubby took 2 big tests today and passed both with flying colors and then picked me up and we went and voted (pull the levers on the machine kind)in the rain. Only about 8 people there to vote at about 3PM. We also filled out a change of address registration form after voting and we were in and out in 15 minutes.

Wendo
Member

08-07-2000

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 9:34 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
My experience went well. I went about 10:30am to my polling place, the public library down the street. When I got there, I joined a line with about 30 to 40 people in front of me. However, a few minutes later a man came over to the line and asked if anyone in line was from precinct 30. Apparently, another precinct cribbed part of my polling place.

I said I was and was instructed to head on in. Went through my approval process with my registration card, signed the sheet to compare my signature, and took my ballot to a station. Here in Chicago we still use the punch hole ballot. I voted, removed my ballot, examined my holes for chads and took it to the vote box. It sucked it in and the screen said my ballot was fine. I was given my Thanks for voting! receipt and headed out.

As I was driving around today doing errands, polling places had lines out the door and down to corners. It was good to see for sure.

Moderator
Moderator

06-30-2002

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 10:09 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
We moved some posts from a similar thread in the N&V area into this thread.

~ModND

Pamy
Member

01-02-2002

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 10:10 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I can't believe OC and Riverside are ahead of LA getting those electronic voting booths.

Springer
Member

03-12-2004

Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 3:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
It has been so much fun reading this thread on election day experiences...and now, a little late, I just had to contribute my own.

My voting place is in a little town in Ramsey Minnesota, at our city hall. I brought a new neighbor with me because she wasn't sure where to vote and we went about 2:30 in the afternoon.

Now, even though we are two of those elderly people some of you are making fun of....I swear....we didn't run or shove anyone out of the way to get there first.

There were 12 booths and 5 of them were open...so we had no wait at all. We have the scan method, where we fill in the circle. I forgot to look and see what my number was...wish I had though.

I finished voting before my neighbor and stood aside to wait for her. I watched as a mother voted with her little 5 year old girl watching every move. The mother held her daughter up so she could see her vote and held her hand as she cast her vote in the electronic machine. As they walked out of the room the little girl had a look of pride on her face too. It was fun to watch and brought tears to my eyes.

I just couldn't sleep that night...the voting was so close.....and was still awake at 3:30 the next morning...so decided to put on a pot of coffee and try to wait it out. Finally drifted off about 7:00 and we still didn't know for sure.

It is with pride and honor that we, as American Citizens, have the freedom to vote.

Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Friday, November 12, 2004 - 1:44 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh wow.. well my voting place was a few blocks away from me, in the gymnasium of the Shoreline Baptist Church/school..

There were two election boards in the same room.. ours had a large precinct and the other had two smaller ones.

I was working all day.

I arrived about 5:45am and by 6:00am we knew that we had only three of us to work until 3pm.. the fourth woman got the flu and stayed home. I was working with my usual inspector but everyone else that day was unfamiliar.

The machines were all set up the night before but we had to get things out on our set of 5 tables and do the opening on our controller for our set of eSlates.

At 7am we announced that the polls were opened and showed the first voter that the ballot box was indeed empty, sealed the box and started processing voters (checking them on the roster, asking for id IF they were first time federal voters, issuing passwords for those voting on the eSlates, paper ballots for those who demanded it, provisional ballots for those not listed but who seemed to be in our area and who claimed to be registered. Later in the day it seemed that we had to accept anyone from any precince in California. We did turn away two voters from Massachusetts and one from Arizona.. not sure why they thought they could vote in an entirely different state with a different set of electoral college members and different set of electoral college votes..

We also took in any absentee ballots that people brought in to the polls.

The big complication was that since for reasons unknown to us and not at all appreciated by us, it was impossible to tell which precinct a voter was from, without checking the street address.. the forms they had didn't include the precinct number!!

IF a board has 5 members or even 4, then they can assign one person as a greeter.. that person snags people coming in the door, and uses their address to figure out where to send the voter. We had only three people.. the other board had five but the guy who is the inspector is a very frustrating man and this year, again, he simply refused to assign any of his people to that job, so we had many voters who stood in line at the wrong table and were not happy.

As the day went on we tried to get everyone to come to our table first because we had shorter lines and could more quickly determine if they should be with us, or with the other group,but those who came in the other door and stood in very long lines in the other precinct, then came to us quite unhappy.

We heard many complaints about the other group all day long.

In the afternooe we had more people, but still I worked for 15 straight hours with one bathroom break and no lunch break (I brought my lunch and was able to, over time, eat a sandwich, and a baggie of carrots and down two pepsis and a bottle of water).

Still I was happy to do this job. I really do enjoy trying to make the experience as friendly as possible for people.. to reassure those who are nervous, to not rush people who are older and may have more trouble signing in. or help someone with a form or a machine.. give a magnifier to the brave woman who is in the middle of chemo and having eyesight problems, to congratulate first time voters or listen to those who have come here from countries where they didn't have the right to vote.. they are quite vocal about what it means to them! The first time voting for a naturalized citizen is quite special to them.

We had a steady stream of voters from 7am to 8pm when the polls closed.. more voters, higher percentage than any year I've worked.

At 8pm we started shutting down.. counting, crossfooting, closing out the eslates, printing totals, packing everything up, folding up the booths.. and then we went home..

OH yeah and I voted.. I had brought in my absentee ballot, planning to surrender it and vote on the eslates but I would have had to go tl the unfriendly group across the room so I just filled out my absentee forms and dropped them in our voting box.

Pamy, I guess we are "ahead", though to be honest, there was nothing at all wrong with our punch card systems.. but politcally, after all the chad problems in the 2000 election, I guess there wasn't much choice in the matter.

We had 462 eslate voters, 56 provisionals, 8 using paper ballots, a whole slew of absentee ballots brought in and many more who were listed as absentee on the roster.. huge huge turnout.