I was reading Joe.My.God’s blog and he invited his readers to comment about how their voting experience had gone. Since only a few of my readers ever comment, and a lot of you are not in the U.S., I can’t expect but a few answers compared to the hundreds Joe will get. However, feel free to comment on any of these questions Joe posed:
Tell me about your voting experience (and where you are). How long was your wait? Did you witness anybody giving up on the line? How was the mood of your fellow voters? Did the voting machine work properly? Are you confident your vote was recorded properly?
I voted Sunday before last. I had no wait. The poll workers were organized and pleasant. My machine worked. There’s no reason to doubt that my vote was recorded properly since this state is so red-locked that I’m the only one who takes my vote seriously. NOTHING would stop me from voting, however.
my voting experience was fairly uneventful as well – we went a few weeks ago on a sunday. waited like 3 minutes, logged my votes, and left.
Rick in Cleveland (great battleground state of Ohio!). Paper ballots in my precinct and everything seemed to go smoothly. I was maybe 40th in line, took around an hour. Line was longer when I left. Spirits were high.
It took me 1.5 hours to vote here in Louisiana. The poll workers were really helpful for people with special needs (1 in wheelchair, 1 pregnant). I saw 2 people crying after they voted. I think my vote will be counted and that I’m a part of history today.
I found you thru scottynola’s blog a few months ago.
I waited two minutes and that was only because there was a shift change for the name-takers. No one gave up on the line. There weren’t a lot of people there, most people just looked like they were going about their daily business without much fanfare, only one woman made a disgusted face about a man near the polling place who had a “Vote No on 1” sign. Voting machine swallowed my ballot so I assume it worked and that my vote was properly counted.
Kentucky may be a little redder than Texas this year, but still I vote too. We had a 24-yr incumbent Senator, Mitch McConnell, up for re-election, and it was a close race but I think he’ll win again. He’s the Senate minority leader. It would be sweet if he got Tom Daschle’d, but oh well.
Normally, I’m in and out in 5 minutes. It took a little longer today, but only a few extra minutes. No one gave up on waiting. There was a short line, but they had extra tables set up so that once you signed in and got your ballot it went pretty quickly. I saw a LOT of young people this time around. I had no problems with the machine.
Mom planned to vote on the way to work this morning, so I asked her to call me and tell me how the line was. I figured if it was already long and I was oing to have to wait a while anyway, I’d just sleep in and go later. She called within ten minutes of leaving the house. There was no line and she was in and out, so I rolled out of bed and heaed over to the BG Hj High gym. The parking lot was practically full when i got there, but three precincts vote there, so I wasn’t surprised. There were about ten people in line ahead of me. I had taken a book just incase. I read maybe two pages before it was my turn. I had no difficulty with the process. Like you, I have no reason to think my vote was not processed correctly. The crowd was mostly older Republicans. Our subdivison is mostly retirees. I ignored there chatter and read my book.
I’m all about the book thing. I was the only person standing in line with an open book and this was in a library!
Yay for quick voting!
I voted a week-and-a-half ago at the main branch of our library system.I waited 45 minutes and it went smoothly. No one stepped out of line and no one seemed upset. Even though the room set aside for voting was small, the poll workers were all in good spirits and kept everything organized and friendly.
For me, it was as close to an ideal experience as I’ve had in 30 years of voting(almost as long as you’ve been alive!). It was done on the third floor, so I was in air-conditioned comfort the whole time, and I was surrounded by 4 floors of books, which I explored as my prize for voting. Sure, I would have done that anyway, but one gets their jollies where they can. I even grabbed a chicken wrap sandwich at the cafe on the first floor before I went home. I felt sooo metropolitan. Okay, I made myself snicker about that last part.
a cafe in a library? how avant-garde! wish we had one.
It’s pretty good! They claim to have the largest vegetarian menu in Florida. The thing is, everything on the menu can be made from various combinations of all or some of the same ten ingredients. They also have a non-veggie selection for carnivores like me. I do have to say that the coffee flavorings they use are pretty vile. I guess it can’t all be good.
Voter fraudulent…
Between the primary and today my name was somehow placed on the Inactive Voter roles – apparently 5 out of 45 voters in my precinct alone had already complained about the discovery. I was allowed to vote but it was suspicious and WRONG and I wondered if it happened to me because I vote deep in a Latino neighborhood. The polling place was a bit tense with the problem, as you might imagine.
Well my voting process is boring. I’m still registered in Florida … so it was all absintee, I’m hoping it counts!
However taking Dr H to the polls was fun. We left at 2pm, and I am typing this at 228pm. There was no line, and the man inside knew Dr H so he didn’t even have to show id. I was parked outside the firehouse, and a hot fireman came out to talk to me – obviously because I was wearing no makeup and went with the Medusa ponytail today as opposed to my regular ponytail. He told me that Dr H would be the 318th voter and that put them at about half of all those registered for that polling place. They were expecting a rush at about 5pm — and so far everything had gone well. Dr H came back, and we came home.
Dr H and I support different candidates, but I liked taking him there, and it was cool to see how seriously he takes voting. I think that we kind of sum up what politics should be about. We agree on a lot of things. I think EVERYONE agrees that vetrans should be taken care off, that everyone deserves an education, that we should be safe and protected, and have better healthcare….we just don’t agree with how we are going to get to the places we want to be. For some reason I listened to Rush L today and it was demoralizing… he made it sound that liberals don’t have drive that they don’t want success or to acheive, and they don’t work hard — and while I don’t feel I have achieved much – I have worked so very hard. Why make that assumption about half of the people in the country? Then I took one of my favorite conservatives to vote … and I felt a lot better
Look Becky, I wrote an entry in your comments.
Oh… and Dr H gave me a watermelon blowpop for drive him.
who knew you can be bought off so cheaply!!! no pics of the hot firemen? I had a few this morning to look at after witnessing the accident…..
everyone knows I can be bought with candy and KFC.
for DRIVING him. UGH!
I was going to make a blowpop joke, but chose not to.
you know I expect you to make fun of me – but Dr H., really?
“I was parked outside the firehouse, and a hot fireman came out to talk to me”
Chris will be so jealous!
I arrived at my polling station (a public school in Queens, NY) a little after 7:00am this morning, and I had no wait. Although there was a lot more “buzz” around the voting booths this year than I’ve ever experienced at this particular voting place before. I was number 24 for my district (there are several districts voting in one place) and the polls opened at 6:00am, so I took that as a pretty good sign regarding voter turnout. The busiest times at this particular polling place are after 5pm, when people get home from work. I’m thinking I’ll swing by there on my way home tonight and check out the scene; hopefully there will be a line a mile long!
Our voting machines in New York City are the old-fashioned lever kind. Basically you pull the lever to one side, turn these dials (or switches) beside the name of the person you’re voting for, and then pull the lever back when you’re done, thus allowing the machine to register your vote. Everything worked fine for me, and I’m confident that my vote will be counted.
I went this morning after work and was in and out in less than 5 minutes. Maybe 3 people were in line ahead of me. but a steady stream of people coming and going. Paper ballots, but the machine sucked it in when I fed it, so away it went. I didn’t have to show any ID, just say what my name was, and state my address. Although, I could have pulled some address out of my ass because it wasn’t written down anywhere so she had nothing to verify it with.
We early voted last Monday at the same polling place you did. When we got there we had to wait in the line to the left of the door to actually get in the line to vote. The place was packed (we had to park across the street at Marshall’s) but we were in and out of there in 30-45 minutes. People were in good spirits, and the staff was doing a great job.
When I got my access code I was surprised to see so many terminals not in use. I don’t think they had enough volunteers to go as fast as they could.
I am in Illinois. My little burb has only 2000 people and the polling place was at a little church down the road. I went at three this afternoon and was in and out in ten minutes. Four booths, three were filled and I slipped right in. When I was finished there were four more people moving into place. There was no line at three but they said it was really busy this morning and they were expecting another rush after work.
My vote went for Obama and from the reactions of everyone there, everyone elses votes were the same.
Dale & I voted together for the first time ever, at the library. The line looked pretty long when we pulled up this morning, but he figured he’d either have to wait before work or after, and the line was moving pretty good, so we parked and walked up. The line was… quiet. There were a couple people reading, one or 2 I saw with ipod devices. There did end up being a lady behind us who had a toddler boy- about 15 mos maybe- and he was a cutey. First he was throwing and chasing after an earth stress ball, then later, to the amusment of everyone within viewing distance, he was playing with the bike rack. He delightedly banged on it and walked through it for a good while!
It took about an hour for us to make it up to the building.
Inside everything went smoothy. We have the electronic machines here in Maryland. The Xs showed up where I intended them to, the summary showed what it was supposed to, and then it was over.
No electioneering, no one causing trouble or anything. Just walking out with that good feeling from having accomplished something important!