# Voting Problems - and so it begins...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 4, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087 "2008-11-04T17:33:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@atomicbadgerrace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atomicbadgerrace)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/21 "2008-11-04T19:01:23Z")
Another Virginia voter checking in. Came back to Richmond today to cast my ballot at home.
No problems here. Lines went quickly. We used scantron paper ballots.
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### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/22 "2008-11-04T19:03:32Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> As a healthy-bonered Florida resident, I disagree.
>
> At least we’re attached. You’re, like, America’s tonsils.
I prefer to think of Alaska as America’s breast implants.
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### Author:  [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/23 "2008-11-04T19:11:22Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#):
>
> SO much of this is overblown BS, IMO.
Let’s hope so. :fingers crossed:
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/24 "2008-11-04T19:12:10Z")
> [@kushiel](#):
>
> Waaaaaaait! You could see what was on her form?
Yeah, what’s with that?
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### Author:  [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/25 "2008-11-04T19:15:08Z")
When I showed the elderly poll worker my ID, she carefully compared it to the list, then highlighted the wrong name. I pointed this out to her (it was actually my husband’s name that she highlighted, clearly a man’s name but I digress) and she looked at me, seemingly confused. I pointed my name out on the list and told her “that’s me.” She then proceeded to highlight my name, and I told her, don’t turn my husband away when he comes to vote later! She paused and put a little question mark next to his name.
I called my husband and told him what had happened so he could explain if he needed to. After he voted, he called and told me, that he looked at her list and there were quite a few question marks on it. Hopefully most people are noticing when she does that.
(It did occur to me that if it was not my husband’s name and I didn’t point it out to her, I could have chosen not to say anything and came back again later and voted again. But I think the bigger danger is that someone will come to vote and find their name already highlighted erroneously, and not be allowed.)
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### Author:  [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/26 "2008-11-04T19:40:01Z")
> [@kushiel](#):
>
> Waaaaaaait! You could see what was on her form? I assume the election volunteer could as well because she was putting the ballot into the Scantron, correct?
>
> Man, if you so much as fold your paper wrong in Canada your vote is discarded. It’s a BIG no-no for anyone to see your vote, especially an election volunteer.
If their set up is like my set up, you don’t fold your paper. Your long ballot sheet is in a thick folder, and you’re supposed to try to slide it out into the scantron machine, where it grabs it and sucks it in. Problem is that if it jams, or doesn’t accept it, or if you can’t quite slide it from the folder, a lot of people just take the damn thing out of the folder, hold it and feed it that way.
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### Author:  [@Foxy40](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foxy40)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/27 "2008-11-04T19:52:43Z")
> [@kushiel](#):
>
> Waaaaaaait! You could see what was on her form? I assume the election volunteer could as well because she was putting the ballot into the Scantron, correct?
>
> Man, if you so much as fold your paper wrong in Canada your vote is discarded. It’s a BIG no-no for anyone to see your vote, especially an election volunteer.
Interesting.
When I voted this morning, you had an option of waiting for a privacy both or sitting at long cafeteria type tables that had no privacy whatsoever. I choose the table so I could get the heck in and out. I am proud of my choices.
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### Author:  [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/28 "2008-11-04T20:01:15Z")
> [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](#):
>
> We had a tiny problem this morning at my precinct.
>
> The votes here are paper ballots on what looks like a Scan-Tron form. They’re filled out in ink, though, which does not dry immediately. The lady in front of me was voting straight-ticket Republican but the ink had smudged so that the machine thought she had filled in two bubbles for straight-party. After much staring and jabbing buttons, the election volunteer finally pushed the “ACCEPT” button.
>
> It seemed odd to me that the woman would not be given a fresh ballot. My own went through without a problem, but how was hers counted? Did she somehow get to vote for Democrats AND Republicans? Did her vote get counted at all? Did her vote get set aside to be manually counted? It went into the same machine, so I rather doubt that…
>
> Sigh. Even though she’s voting against my candidates, I don’t want her votes to get trashed. I don’t want poorly-trained election officials mucking this up. ☹
Her vote almost certainly did NOT get counted. The volunteer should have given the ballot back to her and told her that the tabulator was saying overvote. Then she should have requested another ballot.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/29 "2008-11-04T20:01:38Z")
That’s bizarre. We have these little foldout booth thingeys that go around the electronic things. When I was a kid and we had the Great Gray Machines of Democracy there was a curtain. You just vote out in the open? Don’t you realize our forefathers fought like bastards for the secret ballot?
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### Author:  [@atomicbadgerrace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atomicbadgerrace)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/30 "2008-11-04T20:14:57Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> That’s bizarre. We have these little foldout booth thingeys that go around the electronic things. When I was a kid and we had the Great Gray Machines of Democracy there was a curtain. You just vote out in the open? Don’t you realize our forefathers fought like bastards for the secret ballot?
Meh. I would’ve skipped the foldout booth and headed straight for the line to feed my scantron into the box, but there was nothing to bear down on. I don’t care whether my vote is secret or not (though I respect that some people do), so I don’t see a problem with having the option available, especially if it speeds up the process.
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### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/31 "2008-11-04T20:26:45Z")
> [@atomicbadgerrace](#):
>
> Meh. I would’ve skipped the foldout booth and headed straight for the line to feed my scantron into the box, but there was nothing to bear down on. I don’t care whether my vote is secret or not (though I respect that some people do), so I don’t see a problem with having the option available, especially if it speeds up the process.
We had the privacy booths available, and the folders that give you some privacy before taking your ballot to the machine, but the election proctors or whatever they are weren’t enforcing the use of it. People were filling out their ballot using sitting on the floor without waiting for a booth to open - one woman was using her husband’s back as a writing surface.
We normally share a voting space with another precinct…this year, expecting a lot more people, they split us out. But there was NO signage - you could stand in line for an hour (at 7am - I got there later and only had a twenty minute wait) only to be told you were in the wrong place and needed to go three miles up the road - the road, by the way, that is most direct, is closed today due to road repair.
I don’t think this was a political “try and surpress votes” sort of thing - just incompetence.
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### Author:  [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/32 "2008-11-04T20:31:59Z")
I love living in a quasi-rural place. I walked right into my local fire station, voted and wqas done in less than five minutes. I was the only one there, and according to the one and only scantron machine, it looked like only 476 people had voted there all day.
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### Author:  [@Drygon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drygon)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/33 "2008-11-04T20:48:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> And then there’s this, from a Rock the Vote rep: The polling precinct for Virginia Tech students in Blacksburg was moved to a church that sits on an unmarked road six miles off campus. Better carpool, Hokies.
I voted this morning in Blacksburg at this church and have a few issues with that statement. First of all, the road is not unmarked. Secondly, the town is running shuttles to the church from campus every 15 minutes or so.
Other than the church not having enough parking (took the wife and I 30 minutes to park), everything went smoothly even with the long line (students started showing up before 5am to vote according to one of the officials there!). They have nice little touch-screen voting computers there, so no paper ballots to run out of.
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### Author:  [@Jolly\_Roger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jolly_Roger)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/34 "2008-11-04T20:54:35Z")
Reading this makes me wonder how they can sleep at night.
[GOP officials trying to disqualify Iowa Student Ballots](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/gop-officials-trying-to-d_n_140983.html)
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/35 "2008-11-04T21:12:18Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> That’s bizarre. We have these little foldout booth thingeys that go around the electronic things. When I was a kid and we had the Great Gray Machines of Democracy there was a curtain. You just vote out in the open? Don’t you realize our forefathers fought like bastards for the secret ballot?
Not quite. From wiki:
> [@wikipedia](#):
>
> In the United States, most states had moved to secret ballots soon after the presidential election of 1884. However, Kentucky was the last state to in 1891, when it quit using an oral ballot. Therefore, the first President of the United States elected completely under the Australian ballot was president Grover Cleveland in 1892.
Before that it was not secret, and not only that, you had to take your own ballot into the polling place. If you could get there. Sometimes that wasn’t so easy.
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/36 "2008-11-04T21:16:10Z")
> [@Jolly\_Roger](#):
>
> Reading this makes me wonder how they can sleep at night.
>
> [GOP officials trying to disqualify Iowa Student Ballots](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/gop-officials-trying-to-d_n_140983.html)
So, presumably literate college kids don’t read the instructions clearly printed on the form, fill out the form incorrectly and expect their inaccuracy to be forgiven? What a buncha crybabies! What is it with people? If it’s not college-educated people fucking up a simple form and crying when maybe they’re not gonna get their way, it’s Florida and Michigan Democrats not following procedure and bitching when it looks like they’ll get spanked!
Fucking follow the rules and play the game. And when you make a mistake, say “Oops” and take what’s coming to you. What’s so hard about that?
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/37 "2008-11-04T21:22:05Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#):
>
> Not quite. From wiki:
>
> Before that it was not secret, and not only that, you had to take your own ballot into the polling place. If you could get there. Sometimes that wasn’t so easy.
I didn’t say our Founding Fathers, I said our forefathers. When we didn’t have the secret ballot we had Boss Tweed. Do you want Boss Tweed? _Do you want Rutherford B. Hayes to eat your babies_?
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/38 "2008-11-04T21:25:20Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#):
>
> So, presumably literate college kids don’t read the instructions clearly printed on the form, fill out the form incorrectly and expect their inaccuracy to be forgiven? What a buncha crybabies! What is it with people? If it’s not college-educated people fucking up a simple form and crying when maybe they’re not gonna get their way, it’s Florida and Michigan Democrats not following procedure and bitching when it looks like they’ll get spanked!
>
> Fucking follow the rules and play the game. And when you make a mistake, say “Oops” and take what’s coming to you. What’s so hard about that?
While I’m not going to raise a stink about this - bit premature - keep in mind that you have no idea whether the students were informed that they’d have to use their mailbox numbers. For all we know, the normal mailing address for campus residents may simply be the college’s address.
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### Author:  [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/39 "2008-11-04T21:27:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> As a healthy-bonered Florida resident, I disagree.
>
> At least we’re attached. You’re, like, America’s tonsils.
If I ever get to a Floridopefest, I’m totally buying you a beer for that.
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-problems-and-so-it-begins/471087/40 "2008-11-04T21:28:11Z")
There are some babies that I wouldn’t mind that happening to.
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