Vote: Bring ID and expect other surprises

[wolf]

Went to my polling place at noon, had my traditional reunion with high school buddy who is a poll watcher this year, catching up on what's been going on in our respective lives (if anybody needs a good criminal attorney, I have her card), and was out by 1215 hrs. No irregularities noted.

[cyber snoop]

But the procedure in PA doesn't require ID anyway.

Does it mean virtually anybody can just walk in and cast a vote? I think I'm living in a wrong state

[wolf]

Your signature has to match what's in the book. More or less. Which is actually a challenge for me.

10 years ago when I registered in my precinct, I had a normal person's signature. All the letters in my name were somewhat neatly formed and identifiable.

Because of my professional need NOT to have a recognizable signature (by practice, commitment warrants are signed sloppily so that patients can't get your name off them and stalk you, I now have a messy, loopy, scrawl in which the initial letters are identifiable, but you'd be hard-pressed to even guess at the rest.

I have actually considered resubmitting a registration form, just to have the signature updated. It's not that big of an issue, and I keep missing the registration deadlines. If I ever move or cross the threshhold of inhibition over changing party affiliation, I'll deal with it.

[wolf]

I can't imagine that the machines would have anything other than non-volatile memory, but sometimes my imagination falls short of reality.

[warch]

Minnesota urban poll report: Van Cleve Park Building- just a bit over an hour wait, but the line had doubled by 11 am. Four years ago I was out in 15 minutes. Several young new registrants- You can register on the day. Over all, the youth of this college neighborhood seemed to be out in great numbers. The usual over 60 year old poll workers neighbors were joined by a big crew of young volunteers- I liked seeing that too.
No irregularities. Legal guy standing by for questions. He weighed in when it was suggested the line wind through a different hallway of the park building- that was given the kibash because of a nearby outside doorway that could not be seen by the officials. It was just cool to be there. Regularly in the 60%s, I bet MN hits a new turnout record.

[404Error]

When I got to the town hall to vote this morning at 8:30 the line was out the door all the way to the parking lot. I stood there for maybe a minute when a guy came out and informed the waiting crowd that there were two lines, the A-O's were to the left of the line everybody was in. I was the only one to move into the left line, walked right up to the front, showed my licence, voted and was back in my car at 8:35! There were no voting gestapo or added security anywhere to be seen but then I didn't expect any either here in Smalltownville, CT.

[lookout123]

i was in line at 5:30 AM behind no less than 50 people. when i left at 6:20 AM there was a line of about 150-200 waiting. yikes. no problems whatsoever.

i did have someone from "my union" office call to tell me about all the dirty tricks the republicans were pulling and attempting to give me some BS about my polling place.

they were stumped when i asked which union they were from, because i've belonged to a grand total of Zero unions in arizona.

[Griff]

I was the 8th voter through this morning. I knew all the poll workers so we chatted a bit. No crowd, never is. Pete went this afternoon and was #151.

[FloridaDragon]

Voted early this morning ... took about an hour here on the east coast of FL....more working class people than I imagined...thought it would be all the blue hairs but I guess they all voted early.

So far it looks like FL might not be the laughing stock of the country on this election as it is not too close yet (again, so far).....

404, where in CT are you? We just moved from Manchester...

FD

[404Error]

Originally Posted by FloridaDragon

...404, where in CT are you? We just moved from Manchester...

FD

Small world FD, I was born and raised in Manchester. I live in Woodstock now, my parents are taking off to Florida tomorrow for their winter home (read: trailer) in Winter Haven. They were just waiting to vote here before they left.

[FloridaDragon]

Originally Posted by 404Error

Small world FD, I was born and raised in Manchester.

Wow...that is a coincidence. Actually liked it there a lot. We had a very nice private yard just behind Highland Market off I-384 near the Bolton line. Too crowded down here in FL.

TW, what is the fun of having nuclear weapons if we can't elect a president who will actually use them? (that is meant as a joke for those who might try to take it seriously).

Wonderful that we have a democratic system...where half the people in the country can be totally PISSED off as a result of any election.

FD

[Dagney]

I was number #773 at my polling place this afternoon. I waited 1.5 hours, and had a nice chat with Reps and Dems regarding the Electoral College. We may have disagreed on whom to vote for, but we were all in agreement that the Electoral College does need to have some work done on it. (I'm also for the splitting of EC votes in relation to the percentate of popular vote for each candidate)

I was suprised however, that in my precinct, we used paper ballots. Prior to today, I'd only voted with mechanical booths. The things you find out when you move

[404Error]

Originally Posted by tw

...If poll problems are going to happen, they will happen in this election. We may be voting as to whether we go to nuclear war. Some people will do anything to protect the warrior president. Expect the worst when ideology is more important than other voters. Probably not, but it could get that adversarial. Expect the worst.

Hummm....looks like Bush got the nod. I don't see anything different around here. TW, see any mushroom clouds on the horizon where you are?

[BrianR]

I had no line at 12:00 when I voted. I was the only voter there. Of course, when the Registrar told me my polling place was to be Rich (unpronounceable)'s Garage, he wasn't kidding. It was not an automotive repair facility, as you might imagine...it was the garage of a private residence. Took me twenty minutes to locate way out in the woods with NO sign on the main road. I finally noticed the "Welcome to Forest Hills" sign behind some bushes and followed the election signs. Sheesh.

I also drove FOUR HOURS to get there, spend an hour in town rooting through a junkyard for some needed parts, and then drove 3.5 hours back to arrive for class at PRECISELY 6:30 pm, when roll was being taken. One more minute and I'd have broken my perfect attendance record. That was close!

Anyway, now it's the day after, the world has not ended that I've noticed. And no one that was threatening to rescind their citizenship has done so, despite my urging. Life really DOES go on.

I just wish the election hadn't been so close. I would have preferred a more lopsided result. But I don't see any of my feared lawsuits or major challenges materializing, so maybe I'm being an Old Maid about that. Sometimes I worry too much. I hope.

Brian

[FloridaDragon]

Originally Posted by BrianR

Sometimes I worry too much.

Me too...I was worried that some of Osama's buds would take this opportunity to interfere with our elections since a fundamental part of what is being done in Iraq and Afghanistan are the holding of free elections.

Would have only taken a couple of small attacks on just a couple out of the thousands of polling places to completely stop the whole election. We would have been voting again in 6 months behind a wall of national guard troops.

Only think I can think of why they didn't is that they hate Bush enough to want him out and they had a pretty good chance of that happening and no way to determine the outcome until today...too late.