I voted!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I much prefer paper ballots. For me there is an emotional connection to the act of putting my 'X' next to the candidate's name.

Yes; quite so. The electronic voting machines we're nowadays seeing are more properly on-site vote tabulators. They optically scan the marked ballots, derive their data, and store these paper ballots in a bin beneath the electronic apparatus. Their big advantage seems to be that when all these polling place tabulators dump their data into the big 'puter located at the county Elections Division, the vote counting is very fast and accurate and Elections Division workers don't have to stay up until four-thirty processing. And there's still the physical paper ballots there if needed for a recount.

[LabRat]

We have the paper ballots and black felt pens, but fill in an oval next to each candidates name. Then we feed the ballot into a machine that accepts or rejects the ballot.

In fact, the guy in front of me was walking away from said machine when his ballot was rejected and got spit back out. (I resisted peeking at it) It noticed something on it, and when a volunteer came over, the guy said he had made a mistake and crossed one circle out and filled in the other circle. He had to fill out a completely new ballot.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Yup -- a "spoiled ballot," as it's called in the trade. He should have turned it in to the poll officials and gotten a new one right off the bat.

[lumberjim]

Mine was like Labrat's. But I had a 45 minute wait in line because the whole thing was run by coffin dodgers.

[SamIam]

Mine was like Labrat's, too. There were old folks at my polling place, also, but they were quite efficient - no waiting, I made my satisfying black marks, fed the ballot into the machine, and was out of there in 20 minutes.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

Mine was like Labrat's. But I had a 45 minute wait in line because the whole thing was run by coffin dodgers.

I had no wait at all at 12:30, and the evangelical xtians even had a spread of coffee, bagels, candy etc set out. I let Ripley make my decision on the ref. vote.

[sweetwater]

I filled in narrow ovals with a soft pencil. I only hope that coloring outside the lines a bit won't affect the results, but the pencil was soft and thick and the table top was pebbly. The machine did not reject the form so it probably worked.

[Shawnee123]

We had paper forms. There was a pen and a pencil (one of those soft lead kind) but I didn't see the pencil until I had already used the pen. Then we just dumped our ballots out of the plastic holder thingy into a box.

After I voted, I realized that earlier when I had offered to help a woman carry some bulky and unweilding bags and packages (she was on her way out when I was going in) that what she was struggling with was a ballot box.

WTF? How safe is that? I presume they all need to be rechecked for authenticity anyway...but now I wonder if I should have just waited and voted today.

What if the pen didn't work well enough? What if Billy Ballot Box walked off with a hundred people's ballots.

Now I'm getting paranoid.

[glatt]

Washingtonpost.com headline is reporting: "Following midday lull, long waits expected for after-work crowd. Officials to accommodate those in line by closing."

It's nice that the officials are willing to accommodate those in line by closing and turning them away.

[Sundae]

Bagels wouldn't buy my vote, but my goodness I'd be happy to pretend for free food!

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Bagels wouldn't buy my vote, but my goodness I'd be happy to pretend for free food!

Not a vote buy, basic hospitality. Many polling places do that same.

[toranokaze]

I voted the last day in the last hour for early voting, with a 30 min wait. I used a touch screen which is the only way I have ever voted.

[Sundae]

Sorry - cultural difference. No-one here puts food out.
Good for them - I approve that aspect of Christianity, it jibes with what I was brought up with.

[footfootfoot]

We had the old turquoise blue metal lever machines. KA Chunk. clsoe the curtain, flip little levers, squint, wonder why the little levers don't move, try to determine why one lever is really far away from a name and another is really close, make your best guess. Ka Chunk. votes cast, curtain opens.

Ever since I changed my registration to Republican I have no longer been plagued by the same problems as Tim Robbins.

[Radar]

In L.A. we use the Inkavote system. You insert your scantron ballot card in the slot below the election booklet, you open the booklet see the candidates or issues with holes next to them. You get a little pen thing and poke it into the correct hole and it marks the scantron ballot card. When you turn the page, the dots are further to the right, and you continue the process.

When you're done, you hand the ballot card to the old guy running the scantron machine, he tears off the top and hands it to you, and then you insert it into the machine to be counted. Then he stickes an "I Voted" sticker to your shirt or hands it to you if you're a lady, and you go on your way knowing you did your civic duty.