It's About The Money, Stupid

[classicman]

He was right in 2011 when he said it and he's even more right now.

[tw]

If everybody is right, then nobody is left. So where is the controversy? It was so much easier (and final) when the emperor simply put his thumb up or down. None of this left / right nonsense.

[glatt]

I heard a new one yesterday. My cousin in Pennsylvania reported that her polling place had a hand-written sign that said that if it gets crowded, you will be limited to 3 minutes in the voting booth.

My gut reaction was that this was an outrage, and all the comments on her FB post were basically the same. Why the rush?

But then I started to wonder why such a sign would exist. Where would the idea of instituting a time limit in the booth come from? And then I wondered, what if I sat in a booth all fucking day long? What if there were five booths, and I got four of my buddies, and we all sat in the booths all fucking day long? What if we got there first thing in the morning, cast our five votes, and then blocked everyone else in the precinct from voting?

And then I wondered if there are people out there who do something like this? Is this a thing? I've heard of elections in the past where people got off work, went to the polls and found lines that wrapped around the block and didn't seem to be moving. If you were a political party minority in your precinct, and you got the word out to all you allies to take an extra 5 minutes in the booth as you vote, you could very easily back the line up enough that people standing outside get discouraged and leave. And odds are if you are a political minority, those people leaving are your opponents. You could easily have a huge impact on the results of that precinct.

I've never worked the polls. How do poll workers keep the lines moving?

[glatt]

An update from my cousin.

I sent an e mail to the county board of elections and got this response: The Election Code states that No elector shall remain in a voting compartment or voting machine booth an unreasonable length of time, and in no event for more than three minutes, however the election officers may grant the voter a longer time if other electors are not waiting to vote.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It was strange here yesterday, at the firehouse voting was split into the three sections of the town as usual, but each section had three voting booths. When you sign in and declare republican or democrat(they already know how you're registered, so you can't lie) they give you a yellow or blue piece of paper to hand the boothmaster©. In addition they hand you a white piece of paper for the "special" election for the 9th district PA senate, where you had to vote in the 3rd booth. Then move to one of the other two booths with your yellow or blue "ticket" for the rest of the candidates.

The thing that surprised me was having to vote for convention delegates, I don't remember doing that before. Each delegate had first and last name, sex, and affiliation for Bernie or Hillary. Also rules which read;
1- vote for no more than eight.
2- vote for no more than four women or four men.
WTF?

[Griff]

Your vote is worth more than mine. I only get 5, 3 men and two women. A hearty wtf? male vs female.

[Griff]

I need to remember to re-register as an independent. There was some excitement among the Dems at the voting station that I was a registered Democrat and also that my extended family was doing most of the voting that morning.