Election Day

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Hakaman
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Election Day

Post by Hakaman » Tue Nov 06, 2012 2:02 pm

How was your voting experience? Mine took me about 45mins. I often wonder why our society can't make voting an 'easier' method then what it is. Why not do it on line? Cheating can happen in any format for those who wish to be corrupt. We file taxes on line, why not vote on line. It would probably generate more voters.
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Post by blue68f100 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 2:57 pm

I voted early, when early voting started. No line......
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Post by stork » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:32 pm

My bride and I walked in, showed ID and voted. Every booth was full so the guy at the registration table said I could wait or just do it on a counter that was handy. Very efficient. We've known how we'd vote for 6 months so it sure didn't take long, 10 min tops from pulling into the lot until I pulled out of the lot.
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Post by Bullseye » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:21 pm

I had to wait a little, about 20 minutes, as the polls opened. From what I observed, the lines were no where as long as they were in last presidential election at my polling place. I was there at the same time frame back then and had to wait over 50 minutes to vote in 2008.

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Post by greener » Tue Nov 06, 2012 10:50 pm

45 minutes in line. The good news was they moved the polling place so we got to wait inside the High School and avoid the 29°F outside.

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Post by ruger22 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:50 am

Wife went at six, line was a block long and took her an hour and a half. I went at 10, half as much line, but still took an hour as one of the machines went down and they only had two.

Everyone was friendly and patient, at least.

Turns out the only thing wrong was that too many people voted for the left guy instead of the right guy. I'm not happy with the results.
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Post by Georgezilla » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:06 pm

Early voted on the 1st, 5 minute wait 8)

One of the early voting poll places was at the university I attend. Just went between classes, very convenient.

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Post by bigfatdave » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:31 pm

voting took less than 15 minutes at 18:20 or so here ... even with the most incompetent poll workers in the entire universe manning the tables

leave work, drive home, park a block early
enter polling location
walk up to my district table and ask who has the book with "O" (my name's first letter) in it
get spiel about how the polling isn't organized by name, but by address
explain slowly, as if to a small child, that I know that and there are still three books just for my sub-district, which I know is 1A, and I need the one with the right section of the alphabet in it
watch poll worker's mental gears grind and miss a few more times
then she asks my address
I give her the address, and she declares "Oh! well that's 1A, you're at the right table!" (as if I should thank her for this information)
I take a moment to suppress rage at the ignorant sheeple manning the polls, screw a smile on my face, and ask again who has the book with the middle of the alphabet, looking for "O", that's "oscar"
then some other clueless old biddy wants my ID
and ANOTHER one asks my address for about the seventh time
I spot that the leftmost old lady has a book open to "N", and correctly determine that she probably has "O" in there as well
give her my last name first, spoken aloud and then SPELLED OUT slowly
then the one with the middle of the alphabet (who doesn't have my ID) can't figure out why "G" names aren't in there (my name sounds vaguely like another, more common, name that starts with "G")
spell name again, slowly ... prepare to spell name using NATO alphabet, followed by boy's names, followed by %%^#$^ flowers, if needed
THEN she finds my name and asks for my address again

finally I get a ballot, and the biddies give me completely useless and somewhat incorrect instructions redundant to common sense and/or the clear instructions printed in the top-left corner of the front page
at this point I'm starting to get an eye twitch, and wondering why I didn't just do a damn early/absentee ballot like last time around

I pick a booth, which is sized for me like you'd feel at a little girl's tea party (seriously, why didn't I just do absentee? they just let you use the high counter if you like)

it takes about two minutes to fill in the bubbles, because I know the issues and races ahead of time, and have a 3x5 card cheat-sheet with all the selections, IN ORDER

exit the booth (extricate myself, that thing was too narrow and too short, next time I'm voting at the handicapped table!)

walk to the scanning machine, and now I'm on the ball!
I'm not letting these clueless twits jabber at me any more and I remember how it works from last time
smile, rattle off correct instructions to the attendant
"tear off this strip, put the big sheet in the scanner, watch the count go up one, put the strip in the other box, take a sticker ... ... right?"
smile politely again
receive big grin and thumbs up from that attendant, apparently she was dealing with morons all day as well as listening to the mindless jabber from the other end of the room
do the above as stated
take a couple extra stickers for pistol cases and whatnot

get back in car
reflect on the nature of poll workers, they're essentially unemployed/retired volunteers, right? so one step up from jurors?

next day at work, my allegedly smart co-workers STILL don't know what issue #1 and #2 were all about - and don't understand why there were more than 2 choices for president/VP
these are supposedly adults with many elections worth of voting experience
and these people who couldn't pull up a sample ballot from the county board of elections website are voting

===

seriously, I'm just voting early next time around - even with absolutely no line the polling experience required WAY too much patience for a process that would take 5 minutes max if the poll workers were as smart as your average trained ferret
and the ladies who run the county BOE where I'd do my absentee ballot are even smarter than trained ferrets, perhaps as smart as a trained monkey or dolphin ... seriously, there's no hassle there at all

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Post by Hakaman » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:19 pm

bigfatdave wrote:voting took less than 15 minutes at 18:20 or so here ... even with the most incompetent poll workers in the entire universe manning the tables

leave work, drive home, park a block early
enter polling location
walk up to my district table and ask who has the book with "O" (my name's first letter) in it
get spiel about how the polling isn't organized by name, but by address
explain slowly, as if to a small child, that I know that and there are still three books just for my sub-district, which I know is 1A, and I need the one with the right section of the alphabet in it
watch poll worker's mental gears grind and miss a few more times
then she asks my address
I give her the address, and she declares "Oh! well that's 1A, you're at the right table!" (as if I should thank her for this information)
I take a moment to suppress rage at the ignorant sheeple manning the polls, screw a smile on my face, and ask again who has the book with the middle of the alphabet, looking for "O", that's "oscar"
then some other clueless old biddy wants my ID
and ANOTHER one asks my address for about the seventh time
I spot that the leftmost old lady has a book open to "N", and correctly determine that she probably has "O" in there as well
give her my last name first, spoken aloud and then SPELLED OUT slowly
then the one with the middle of the alphabet (who doesn't have my ID) can't figure out why "G" names aren't in there (my name sounds vaguely like another, more common, name that starts with "G")
spell name again, slowly ... prepare to spell name using NATO alphabet, followed by boy's names, followed by %%^#$^ flowers, if needed
THEN she finds my name and asks for my address again

finally I get a ballot, and the biddies give me completely useless and somewhat incorrect instructions redundant to common sense and/or the clear instructions printed in the top-left corner of the front page
at this point I'm starting to get an eye twitch, and wondering why I didn't just do a damn early/absentee ballot like last time around

I pick a booth, which is sized for me like you'd feel at a little girl's tea party (seriously, why didn't I just do absentee? they just let you use the high counter if you like)

it takes about two minutes to fill in the bubbles, because I know the issues and races ahead of time, and have a 3x5 card cheat-sheet with all the selections, IN ORDER

exit the booth (extricate myself, that thing was too narrow and too short, next time I'm voting at the handicapped table!)

walk to the scanning machine, and now I'm on the ball!
I'm not letting these clueless twits jabber at me any more and I remember how it works from last time
smile, rattle off correct instructions to the attendant
"tear off this strip, put the big sheet in the scanner, watch the count go up one, put the strip in the other box, take a sticker ... ... right?"
smile politely again
receive big grin and thumbs up from that attendant, apparently she was dealing with morons all day as well as listening to the mindless jabber from the other end of the room
do the above as stated
take a couple extra stickers for pistol cases and whatnot

get back in car
reflect on the nature of poll workers, they're essentially unemployed/retired volunteers, right? so one step up from jurors?

next day at work, my allegedly smart co-workers STILL don't know what issue #1 and #2 were all about - and don't understand why there were more than 2 choices for president/VP
these are supposedly adults with many elections worth of voting experience
and these people who couldn't pull up a sample ballot from the county board of elections website are voting

===

seriously, I'm just voting early next time around - even with absolutely no line the polling experience required WAY too much patience for a process that would take 5 minutes max if the poll workers were as smart as your average trained ferret
and the ladies who run the county BOE where I'd do my absentee ballot are even smarter than trained ferrets, perhaps as smart as a trained monkey or dolphin ... seriously, there's no hassle there at all
All this took less then 15 minutes? That's cool!

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Post by bigfatdave » Wed Nov 07, 2012 7:20 pm

no line ... just incompetent clowns manning the polls, unable to comprehend that I do this every election (sometimes more than once per year!) and actually know what table to go to and where I need to sign

it is as if they've never seen competence before

it still took under 15 minutes from walking in to walking out, because once I escaped the cognitive vacuum I was able to just do my thing and be done

if I can't vote absentee next time around, I'm going to make a JUMBO COPY of my ID, with name and address highlighted, surrounded by glitter and flashing LEDs (it wouldn't be hard, I'd just need to salvage a few things from the scrap bin at work and wire up some lights in my free time at home)

hell, I'll use it as a Halloween costume, with my head shoved through a hole where the picture normally is

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Post by Hakaman » Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:08 pm

if I can't vote absentee next time around,
I keep saying I'm going absentee ballot, but I forget to apply. Next election, though!

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