Voting Experiences

[CmdrWilkens]

Woodlawn Maryland

In five elections (2 primary 3 general) that I have been at my current address and polling place I have never before had to wait longer than a minute or two to actually vote and be out the door. I mean literally in, sign in, vote, hand my card back to the judge and get the sticker. All that was usually a 3 minute exercise in total. Today I actually hit the stopwatch when I got to the back of the line to start workign my way forward. It would be 37 minutes later that I finally emerged fromthe craziness.

Along the way I chatted a bit with folks who admired my Caps jersey and asked if I was going to any games this year. We had a lady who does custom jewelry shows (I guess its the sterling silver version of Tuperware parties) walk the whole line a few times and hand out business cards. Mostly the few folks near me chatted about how we had never seen anything like this. When we actually got into the polling place and had checked in but where waiting for machines I chatted with one of the judges and she mentioned that the lines in the morning had stretched well around the block with folks backed up 45 minutes to an hour getting in.

The thing that gets me is that there is another polling palce 2 minutes down the road and a third 5 minutes up the road. There are a lot of folks voting today and yet I think more are still to come. The neighborhood I live around isn't the best in the world but there are an awful lot of working professionals and they outnumber the non-working or shift work folks pretty heftily so I expect a surge to come after 4 or 5 o'clock. I feel sorry for those folks because even when I finished up at a little after 1:30 they were out of the "I Voted" stickers and one of the election judges told me that the county didn't have any left to send over spares. That is how crazy turnout has been.


-Total aside but Haminal10 is voting roughly 20 minutes north and east of me and his Congressman also represents my parents whoe live 20 minutes south and west of me...who loves gerrymandered districts?

[Kitsune]

Wait until around 1:00 P.M., wherever you are. Most of the lunchtime voters will be back at work by then.

That worked, was only in for an hour this time.....Ours is all electronic touch screen....In some ways I liked the paper ones better

[Haminal10]

Woodlawn Maryland

In five elections (2 primary 3 general) that I have been at my current address and polling place I have never before had to wait longer than a minute or two to actually vote and be out the door. I mean literally in, sign in, vote, hand my card back to the judge and get the sticker. All that was usually a 3 minute exercise in total. Today I actually hit the stopwatch when I got to the back of the line to start workign my way forward. It would be 37 minutes later that I finally emerged fromthe craziness.

Along the way I chatted a bit with folks who admired my Caps jersey and asked if I was going to any games this year. We had a lady who does custom jewelry shows (I guess its the sterling silver version of Tuperware parties) walk the whole line a few times and hand out business cards. Mostly the few folks near me chatted about how we had never seen anything like this. When we actually got into the polling place and had checked in but where waiting for machines I chatted with one of the judges and she mentioned that the lines in the morning had stretched well around the block with folks backed up 45 minutes to an hour getting in.

The thing that gets me is that there is another polling palce 2 minutes down the road and a third 5 minutes up the road. There are a lot of folks voting today and yet I think more are still to come. The neighborhood I live around isn't the best in the world but there are an awful lot of working professionals and they outnumber the non-working or shift work folks pretty heftily so I expect a surge to come after 4 or 5 o'clock. I feel sorry for those folks because even when I finished up at a little after 1:30 they were out of the "I Voted" stickers and one of the election judges told me that the county didn't have any left to send over spares. That is how crazy turnout has been.


-Total aside but Haminal10 is voting roughly 20 minutes north and east of me and his Congressman also represents my parents whoe live 20 minutes south and west of me...who loves gerrymandered districts?

Technically, I am in the 3rd district (Towson is located at the boundry of the 2nd and 3rd), but the point is well taken. The 2nd district is one of the most contorted ones that I have ever seen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Unit ... _2_map.png

[FSTargetDrone]

Amusingly, I saw far more OBAMA/BIDEN signs instead of MCCAIN/PALIN out in front of the polling place, and this part of the county is decidedly more Republican. In general, I have seen many more OBAMA signs around here than KERRY signs last time around on people's lawns, etc.

Aren't you in North Bucks?

We're in Royersford, just on the western edge of Montgomery, closer to Berks/Chester, a few miles east of the Schuylkill. In years past it's been almost exclusively supportive of the Republican candidates, but I have definitely seen many more Obama signs in lots of different places this time around. Veterans For Obama, etc.

[Honorable Mention]

-Total aside but Haminal10 is voting roughly 20 minutes north and east of me and his Congressman also represents my parents whoe live 20 minutes south and west of me...who loves gerrymandered districts?

My mailing address is Fairport. Am I represented by Slaughter or Kuhl? Kuhl - that little curly part (right where the Fairport dot is located) is the missing part of the Kuhl puzzle (where Brighton is on the 29th district map.)

[Tanasinn]

Ann Arbor, Michigan, East Quadrangle

Nothing much of note. I spent ~45 minutes in line. The ballots were good old-fashioned paper. The only incident of note was the girl in front of me, whose sticker had already been used, and thus had to stand off while the poll workers cleared that up. I myself was, for a moment, confused with someone with my exact same initials (and same first/last name), but that was quickly and easily cleared.

[ArcturusMengsk]

East Carondelet, Illinois

Sometimes living in a small town has its perks, like no waiting time to get into the booth and a choice between touchscreen and paper ballots (I naturally want a paper trail behind my vote). You can add +2 to Obama's tally right now, as my mother and I just provided them. I do wish we had a straight ticket option, though; its absence makes going through and voting for positions like coroner and dog-catcher a real bitch.

[Covenant]

I walked down to my polling place on a super nice day, signed my bubbles, and walked out. The entire thing, from out of my house to back again, took about 10 minutes. gObama! Sadly, not a single Obama sign outside the polling place. But hey, whatev', Illinois is going blue.

[Lonestar]

Post your voting experiences, where you voted and what/who you voted for here.


I'm in Fairfax, VA (i.e. Fake/Communist Virginia) and I voted:
McCain/Palin[R]
Obama/Biden[D]*
--some third party candidates--

Keith Fimian[R]
Gerry Connolly[D]*

Bonds for Parks
Y
N*



Lines at 8AM seemed to be fairly short.

Ha! I live in Fairfax too, I just came from Mantua Elementary school. I was able to walk right in(I assume it will be more busy in the evening, CNN was talking about how Virginia was having all kinds of misfires. I used the optical scanning machine. BOTH major parties had cookies left out for the voters. Also:

McCain/Palin[R]
Obama/Biden[D]*
--some third party candidates--

Mark Warner[D]*
Gilmore[R]
Gail[G] (for some reason I con only remember her theme song)

Keith Fimian[R]*
Gerry Connolly[D]

Bonds for Parks
Y
N*

[Rogue 9]

East Carondelet, Illinois

Sometimes living in a small town has its perks, like no waiting time to get into the booth and a choice between touchscreen and paper ballots (I naturally want a paper trail behind my vote). You can add +2 to Obama's tally right now, as my mother and I just provided them. I do wish we had a straight ticket option, though; its absence makes going through and voting for positions like coroner and dog-catcher a real bitch.

The straight ticket option should be abolished wherever it's currently allowed, such as my own state. What the fuck does it matter what party the coroner or dogcatcher are from? They're inherently non-political positions; whether there's an (R) or (D) behind the name has absolutely nothing to do with who is the most qualified candidate. If you don't know which candidate is more competent at autopsies/catching dogs/whatever, either educate yourself before you go to the ballot box or abstain from voting on the position. Unthinking straight-ticket voting is simply ignorant.

[ArcturusMengsk]

East Carondelet, Illinois

Sometimes living in a small town has its perks, like no waiting time to get into the booth and a choice between touchscreen and paper ballots (I naturally want a paper trail behind my vote). You can add +2 to Obama's tally right now, as my mother and I just provided them. I do wish we had a straight ticket option, though; its absence makes going through and voting for positions like coroner and dog-catcher a real bitch.

The straight ticket option should be abolished wherever it's currently allowed, such as my own state. What the fuck does it matter what party the coroner or dogcatcher are from? They're inherently non-political positions; whether there's an (R) or (D) behind the name has absolutely nothing to do with who is the most qualified candidate. If you don't know which candidate is more competent at autopsies/catching dogs/whatever, either educate yourself before you go to the ballot box or abstain from voting on the position. Unthinking straight-ticket voting is simply ignorant.

It doesn't, and that's the point: being able to vote straight ticket would eliminate time basically wasted on relatively meaningless races such as those. I don't care if the county coroner is Democratic or Republican, but I do care that going through the ballot for such positions is inconvenient and time-consuming.

[Count Chocula]

Some polling places are running more smoothly than others: UPenn videotape of Black Panthers in Philly outside a polling place. The BP with the billy club was removed by police.

[Rogue 9]

There were all sorts of campaign signs and people campaigning right outside the community center when I went to vote. Maybe I'm completely misremembering my poll inspectors' briefing from my stint as an inspector during the primary, but I was under the impression that this is against the fucking law. They weren't allowed to bring campaign materials into the building, but I was told back in May that campaigning was not permitted within 200 feet of a polling place, and that it was the inspector's job to eject people who did so and confiscate signs left too close.

[UCBooties]

I'm in Worcester PA, Montgomery County. The church where we vote had a line out the front door when I got there at ten of 7am. Doors opened promptly and I was through in about 15 minutes. I voted for the Secret Muslim Socialist and split the rest of the ticket among our unobjectionable slate of incumbents. I voted yes on the state measure for water and sewage infrastructure because I'm all for repairing our infrastructure. All in all it was pretty uneventful and I was off to work on time.

[SirNitram]

Some polling places are running more smoothly than others: UPenn videotape of Black Panthers in Philly outside a polling place. The BP with the billy club was removed by police.

I'm gonna say right now two things.

1) By nightfall, Fox News and the Right Wing echochamber will have multiplied this to fifty guys with guns, and it's all over the country.

2) It's nowhere near as nefarious as it seems through this report.

[RedImperator]

Deptford, Gloucester County, State of New Jersey, United States

Arrived at 7 AM, no lines to speak of. Voted Obama/Biden, held my nose and voted for Lautenberg (D), voted for Rob Andrews (D), and voted to keep the Democrats on the county board of freeholders, on the grounds that they haven't fucked everything up any worse than Republicans would have.

Two immensely boring ballot initiatives. Public Question 1 would amend the state constitution to allow the state to issue bonds guaranteed by tax revenue without a ballot initiative. Fuck you guys, we're in enough debt. No. Ballot Question 2 would amend the state constitution to allow the requirements for appointing municipal judges to be set by statute, instead of the constitution. Voted no on that, too, because the last thing the Legislature needs is more power.

[rhoenix]

My experiences voting about 12:15pm was rather pleasant. Almost no line in front of me (though that was quickly changing behind me), and scantron forms were used - no touchscreen bullshit here.

Voted Obama/Biden for president, and straight Democrat for the rest. I did so not because I am a Democrat, but because they have a better chance and better momentum to get with Obama's mandate, should he win like it appears he will.

There wasn't an option to vote "no, and fuck you" on Proposition 8 (which is the Proposition on the ballot to outlaw gay marriage), so I just sedately voted "no."

[Erik von Nein]

Voted about an hour-and-a-half ago. Another one for Obama.

Voted no on Prop 8 and Prop 4 (requiring minors to inform their parents before an abortion) as well as the dozen-odd programs dumping huge costs on the state (between 740 million for on and 10 billion for another). Much as it would be cool to have a high speed train in California the existing rail system needs to be fixed first. I kind of feel bad about voting against the children's hospital one and the one for veteran's farms and houses, but that's another couple billion the state doesn't have.

Oh, and I voted for the redistricting measure. Screw jerry-mandering.

Locally I voted for a truck driver for mayor, if only because the current mayor's very eh and because the truck driver has no chance of winning.

[Count Chocula]

Fox is already running video they recorded onsite (after the home video, with only one Black Panther away from the door) and they're doing the network hype-spin on it.

Does make you wonder, though: what would be the reaction if a couple of white guys, in ties and shirts, one with a nightstick, were standing in front of a polling place in Baltimore?

[ZShade]

DeKalb County, GA.

Went in at 3:30pm, no lines, a couple of booths empty. Coworkers mentioned that as they were driving to work in the morning, their precincts were backed out the doors. As people leave work, our lines will grow again.

Voted for Obama/Biden, and while Jim Martin doesn't excite me that much, throwing Chambliss out on his ear was convincing enough for me to vote Democrat. Congressman Hank Johnson is running unopposed, but since he voted against both bailout bills, I felt obliged to give him my vote anyway.

[rhoenix]

My experiences voting about 12:15pm was rather pleasant. Almost no line in front of me (though that was quickly changing behind me), and scantron forms were used - no touchscreen bullshit here.

Voted Obama/Biden for president, and straight Democrat for the rest. I did so not because I am a Democrat, but because they have a better chance and better momentum to get with Obama's mandate, should he win like it appears he will.

There wasn't an option to vote "no, and fuck you" on Proposition 8 (which is the Proposition on the ballot to outlaw gay marriage), so I just sedately voted "no."

Sorry - should've mentioned that I'm in Sacramento, CA.

[KlavoHunter]

Madison, WI - Voted just a few minutes ago. Ballots were stiff, thick paper. Fill in the arrow next to the candidate you want to vote for with the provided marker, then feed the ballot into the machine.

Voted straight Dem, and we had two propositions on the ballot, though they weren't anywhere near as important as Prop 8 in California or some other Props being voted on today.

Very satisfying, filling in that arrow next to Obama-Biden

[Exonerate]

Southern California
Paper fill-in ballot, read by a machine.

Obama/Biden for President
Democratic for Senate/Representatives. Considered voting against the incumbent that voted for the bailout, but I decided against it, considering how little I can agree with Republican policy.
Left the local stuff blank, didn't want to make an uninformed decision.

No on HS Rail - It's a great long term investment, just not now.
Yes on farm animal confinement - I read through the actual proposition itself, and pretty much all it calls for is larger cages. Larger cages is going to be a one-time cost thing. As far as I could tell, all the opposition arguments (SALMONELLA CONTAMINATED EGGS FROM MEXICO) were just scaremongering.
No on children's hospital - I did some research, and apparently like half the money from a past proposition allocated for it still hasn't been used up. Don't ask for seconds when you haven't even finished what you have on your plate.
No on parental notification for abortion.
Yes on non-violent drug offenses - Let the punishment fit the crime. Convert offenders into contributing members of society instead of having them suck up more resources because they're jailed.
No on the TUFF ON KRIME proposition. Let's not try 14 year old kids as adults and ruin them for life.
No on renewable energy. Higher costs will lower production, and we all know how that turned out last time.
No on gay-marriage ban.
No on criminal justice system amendment. It's just more redundancy, California already has victim's rights in the law.
No on alternative fuel vehicles subsidy. Apparently even the environmental groups oppose this on the grounds that natural gas is better used for power generation than personal vehicles.
Yes on redistricting amendment. No more gerrymandering.
Yes on Veteran's Loans - the costs will be paid by the veterans the money is loaned to, so it's not like the other bond initiatives where the taxpayers end up paying massive amounts of interest.

[Duckie]

Today there were Republicans handing out Voters' Guides in front of the church where the polling station for my neighbourhood is. I early voted, but I saw them. I'm unsure if it's illegal or not. The Democrats seemed to think it was- when I early voted, we were told to look over the Voters' Recommendations but that it would be wrong to take them in with us.

I saw some Yes on 2 people with police protection. (The Gay Marriage / Any Civil Union With Any Rights ban). Felt good that they felt they needed it, even if it's likely to pass even with the 60% constitution amendment requirement.

Almost no problems, it looked like- the line was only like 5 people long and by the time I waited for a bus you could see people have already gone in and out. Looked efficient. Save for that it was a church that was handing out Republican Voters' Guides.

[Skylon]

Stony Brook, NY and we used those old mechanical machines.

Rochester, NY. I really hate those machines. I considered a write-in until I learned that a) your write-in vote only counts if it's for an official write-in candidate who filled out paperwork; and b) it's kind of weird in those booths.

Aw, come on, what's wrong with those old machines besides it being "weird" in them? They work. I have never had a problem with them. Considering the voting problems I sometimes hear from the rest of the country, I see those machines as shining examples of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

No real problems. A new voting location for me, as I moved (a nearby Church). Took about 5 - 10 minutes as the volunteers signing people in seemed a bit scatter-brained. I also took a little longer to read the exact wording of the two referendums being voted on.