Washington Post: “With voting under attack, Arizona schools don’t want to be polling locations”

[Babale]

@thorny_locust

As has been said: there are often local offices on the ballot. My county legislature has multiple districts, and I need a ballot for the correct district. I suppose it would be theoretically possible to stock all the districts with all the ballots (which is presumably what the county seat does, for the early voting) but it seems like quite a hassle and a probable waste of a lot of paper, or else a significant risk that some stations would run out of particular ballots.

Like I said, there would be 5 or 6 options some of which are walking distance. All are presumably part of the same district.

I guess I am spoiled that way, living in a state that actually wants people to vote.

But there are ways to vote when you’re out of district, too. For example, the ballot could come in two sections, one which is universal and one which is specific. And this all assumes you aren’t using voting machines.

@thorny_locust

I can think of another, for rural areas: in this area, at the polling station for a specific district most voters will actually be identified by sight, as in, at least one of the poll workers will know almost everyone who shows up. (I say, 'we’ve got voter ID. She knows me, and he knows me . . . ') A district or two away, it’s quite likely none of them will know me.

That’s not really necessary for anything. I’ve never known any of the poll workers at any of the polling stations I’ve gone to.

@thorny_locust

But I suspect another reason is “that’s the way we’ve always done it around here.” Dating back, undoubtedly, to when there was no way for Voting Site A to find out on the day whether somebody’d already voted at Voting Site B; they checked your name off on a list written on paper.

This, I presume, is the real reason.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@LSLGuy

I suspect you meant anti-desegregationists, but otherwise that’s a great post.

Yes, thank you for catching that error.

Stranger

[BippityBoppityBoo]

@PhillyGuy

there are hyper-local offices on the ballot, such as for a school board member who represents a sliver of the school district. So the ballot at each polling place tends to be a little different.

This is exactly the case in Nebraska-each precinct has a different ballot and you must vote in your precinct of residence (or you can request an absentee mail ballot or you can go to the one election office in the county to vote early in person for a few weeks up to Election Day). The precinct where I have been a poll worker for 2 decades, for instance, had 7 different ballots in May’s primary, depending on which party a voter was registered for. Multiply 7 different ballots times the 44 precincts in my town of 290,000 and it gets complex. A voter has to show up at precisely the right voting place.

@Chronos

Honestly, it’s probably a good idea for public places that deal with large populations (the sort of places where voting centers tend to be) to have naloxone on hand, anyway.

This poll worker carries narcan in my purse, so it’ll be at my precinct. I volunteer in a refugee English literacy program 3 times a week in a public library in the downtown main public library, which is marvelously welcoming to the unhoused who gather downtown. As a nurse I’m comfortable offering bystander first aid to all so I prepared myself and acquired free narcan through a state public health free no questions asked narcan distribution. Filled out a form online and narcan was mailed to me. It’s with me wherever I go, public library, polling place, riding Amtrak, free festival in a city park. It’ll be with me November 4th, not that I’m worried about fentanyl-laced anything but because a thousand people will move through that church social hall in the course of Election Day.

@RitterSport

Most of the volunteers who work my polling site on election day are in their 70s or 80s. I’m glad you’re tougher than a 75-year-old woman, but she might not feel as comfortable with the threats. I’m honestly stunned that you don’t see the issue for democracy with threatening violence against poll workers and election officials – it’s straight out of a fascist playbook.

I’m one of those old lady poll workers, 74 now but I’ve been doing it since I was 54. Verbal hostility is the worst I’ve had to deal with in my deep red state but any voter trying even slight testiness gets rapidly shut down and if necessary hustled out of building by a phalanx of poll-workers who will call the police if needed. Police officers drop in periodically through the 16 hours we are there. Maybe for the coffee and snacks in the break room, but they make a point of having a preventative presence, as do our county Sheriff’s deputies. They all carry narcan on their duty belts as well, BTW.

You know what this 74-year-old ‘old lady poll worker’ really worries about? Constitutional gun carry in public places-that’s what scares me on election days.

[Lumpy]

@Dr.Drake

There are lots of legendary narratives about fentanyl being so deadly that its mere presence kills. These go way back, decades before fentanyl took the starring role, and don’t need to be true or even scientifically plausible to be effective at influencing people’s decisions.

Perhaps what they’re thinking of is carfentanil, which is much stronger even than fentanyl and has an extraordinarily tiny lethal dose.

[Dr.Drake]

Given the antiquity of “person [especially child] encounters drugs in an innocuous manner and DIES” legends, I don’t think you really need to dig to find a scientifically plausible scenario. Plus, it gets mixed up with things like anthrax-laced letters and all sorts of other things.

[thorny_locust]

@Babale

Like I said, there would be 5 or 6 options some of which are walking distance. All are presumably part of the same district.

I guess I am spoiled that way, living in a state that actually wants people to vote.

You must be living in a sizeable city. My voting site is 6 1/2 miles by road; and is in the nearest village. County seat for early voting is twice that. And, if you check with my avatar, you’ll see I’m in Finger Lakes New York: not Alaska or Montana or even the Adirondacks.

There is nothing about wanting people to vote that is going to reasonably put 5 or 6 sites within walking distance of people in large areas of the country.

@Babale

I’ve never known any of the poll workers at any of the polling stations I’ve gone to.

Of course not. Most people living in cities won’t.

I’m not assuming your situation is unreasonable. Kindly recognize that my situation, and the situation of many others in the country, is different.

[Chronos]

I think that in the jurisdictions where you get a choice of polling place, the ballots are generally printed on demand. So they don’t need stacks of all of the ballots, just stacks of blank ballot paper and computer files of all of the ballots.

[Babale]

@Chronos

So they don’t need stacks of all of the ballots, just stacks of blank ballot paper and computer files of all of the ballots.

Sorry, I live in the 1800s; what is a com-pewter?

[Thing.Fish]

Here in Chicago, we have early voting stations open a few weeks ahead of election day; there are maybe 30 of them scattered around the city, but you can vote at any of them. If you wait until election day, you need to vote at the designated spot for your precinct. I’m not sure what our rule for absentee ballots is.