The state board of elections mailed me us cards showing that we were duly registered to vote, and gave the address of the polling place where I’ve voted in every election for the past several years. Today my wife and I got up early and were there at 6:00 A.M. when the polling place opened, and there was already a long line. We stood in line for nearly a hour, and then were told-- surprise! we had been reassigned to the other precinct in town.
The county election officials fucked up, they didn’t bother to inform us and a lot of other people in town that their precinct had changed. Mrs. Mojo had to get to work and was going to cancel her plans to vote today because our chance had been blown. I pleaded with her, and the Democratic worker outside also pleaded with her, offering child care services to allow her to take another chance. So she finally relented and we went to the other precinct and successfully voted DEMOCRAT. YEAH!!!
But it frosts me out, thinking how many people’s schedules today were spoiled by this fuckup and didn’t vote as a result. We reported it to the friendly and helpful Democratic legal observer who stood outside the second precinct we went to. She said there were a lot of these fuckups today. Now I’m going to work late, but at least I proudly wear the "I VOTED"sticker that I had to stand in line for during almost two hours instead of one hour.
Fairfax County, Virginia: I pit YOU. You disgusting disenfranchising fuckups. How many other polling place fuckups happened today across America?
Shit, I don’t even want to talk about my precinct. We had some old Soviet Eastern Bloc style machines, with a 2 handed lever! I felt like I was tripping the brakes on a runaway locomotive or something.
That sucks, man. I didn’t have it quite as bad this morning, but still had a bit of a “challenge”, because three of the four precincts for my district were housed in the same building. In the same room. So for people like me, who had no idea which “precinct” (read: table) they were supposed to go to because they didn’t bring their registration cards, it was a total crap shoot. You just had to pick a line and hope that when you got to the front of it, the nice person seated behind the table would have your name on his or her list (took me two tries).
And OK, granted, it was our fault for not bringing our cards, but even those people WITH their cards couldn’t tell where to go, because there were no signs posted where anyone could see them over the crowd! So if a guy’s voter card said “Precinct 4”, he had to walk around asking people in line until he found the right one.
And the place was packed, so it was total chaos. I did witness a couple of people get fed up and leave, but am not sure if they gave up entirely, or what.
But voting machines are what makes voting in New York State…well, unique. Myself, I tend to liken the voting machines to a giant slot machine. And here in upstate, they’ve never paid off.
I love those machines! There’s something satisfying about the ratchety-clunk of the lever that suggests you have done something of grave import, something irrevocable.
As opposed to touchscreens, where you can accidentally vote for Lyndon Larouche if you bump it with your elbow.
Y’know, in any endeavor involving 300-plus million people, there will be problems. That’s inevtiable. It’s not all due to Karl Rove’s evil machinations.
If you re-read the thread, no-one has cited Rove/the Republicans/anyone else like that as the source of those fuckups, though - they’re pissed about the fuckups themselves. The OP did mention the Democrats a couple times, but only regarding what party he voted and that a Democratic poll worker tried to convince his wife to go vote at the other place anyway.
I’d like to retroactively pit my local DMV office for screwing my husband and I out of our chance to vote in the 2000 presidential elections. We moved between the primary and the election, and updated our voter registration via the “Moter Voter” system. Imagine our surprise when we showed up to vote and weren’t registered. At least a few hundred (IIRC) people had their new registrations “lost” somewhere. So thanks a fucking lot, IL Secretary of State’s office, for screwing that many people out of the chance to vote then. When my husband and I went to the polls this morning, the poll worker who’d helped us file a complaint last time was there, and recognized us.
Oh - go vote, even if you hate both the Presidential candidates, as there have to be other issues or candidates you care about in other races.
Finally - we voted with big paper forms that you fill in the bubble with a special marker, and then fed them into a machine that makes sure you didn’t double-vote for a race or make a mark in an incorrect area of the form.
I was surprised at the attitude displayed by one poll worker. I gave him my personal info and party affiliation in response to his questions, signed on the line and was passed on to the next worker to get my voting card. In passing me along, he leaned over to his coworker and sneered/growled “Another Democrat!”
Well, Excuuuuuuuse me! Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?
Absolutely improper. This kind of nonsense should be reported. Poll workers should be impassively neutral, regardless of whether they leave the polling station and turn the radio to listen to Bill O’Reilly or Al Franken.
You know, it’s funny. I have voted in the City of Dallas, Texas since 1988 and I have never, ever seen any sort of election difficulties by anyone until today. I overheard three (3!) different people having difficulties.
One was simply in the wrong precinct. An election official was looking through some lookup book to tell him where to go.
Another had apparently forgotten his voter registration card and they sent him home to go get it. I was under the impression they’d let you vote even without that card if you have a picture ID, so maybe he wasn’t on their list, or maybe his name was misspelled on the list or some such.
The third person, though, whooeee, what a piece of work. He was loud and obnoxious and letting everybody know that his right to vote was being denied! From what I could tell, though, he hadn’t even bothered to register to vote! He showed up with his driver’s license and just assumed he could vote. In the end, they issued him a “provisional ballot” just to shut him up. I would bet you that when the county election judges look at that bad boy tonight it’s going straight to the trash bin. I can’t say as I have any sympathy, either, since for the past five or six years when you sign up for your DL they automatically ask if you need to register to vote. Really, people, how hard is that?
No problems for me, though the wait was a bit long. The voting place was somewhat organized chaos, with longer-than-expected lines intersecting each other oddly. But I got my name checked off and stepped into the Big Lever Machine and did my duty without any trouble.
