How did your Voting Experience go today?

I could toss a rock and hit my polling place, as it is across the street.

It opened at 7AM & my wife went first while I watched the kids. I went at 7:23 & took about 5 minutes.

No biggie.

Oh, they were paper scantrons.

Just got back. I had no wait, took all of 5 minutes. Sadly most of my local officials had no opposition to vote for though .

Five minutes in PA. Irritated at the lack of any paper trail.

From the local news:

"In Pennsylvania, a would-be voter was arrested at a polling place in Allentown, where election workers said he smashed an electronic voting machine with a paperweight.

Authorities didn't know what caused the outburst. "He came in here very peaceably and showed his ID, then he got on the machine and just snapped," volunteer Gladys Pezoldt told The Morning Call of Allentown.

The machine's screen was damaged and it was not immediately clear if votes recorded on the machine could be retrieved. Police said the man faced charges of felony criminal mischief and tampering with voting machines."

It wasn't me!

Easy, I went to the town hall about 11AM, there where no lines or waiting. No ID Is needed. The ballot is a large sheet with fill in the dot next to the name of the canidate. It is easy to read and simple to understand. The state election board sends a detailed publication to every voter about the initives so I did not have to read through the long wording on the ballot. I just filled in yes or no. I was done in about 10mins.

Smooth as silk in our lil ol fire station this morning. No lines, show your ID, your checked on a list to be sure you actually live in the precinct, handed a ballot and your good to go.
Wife just called and said the after work crowd is heavy, about 15 in line ahead of her lol.

Of course I voted. But not today. *sigh* I voted last week.

My county has gone to 100% mail-in ballots, whether you want them or not. This irritates me beyond all reason. And every time I mark my mail-in ballot, I remember my grandmother ...

Grandma lived for years with an abusive spouse who was politically opinionated. Every election cycle, he would write out for her a little note listing exactly who and what she must vote for. He would give it to her on Election Day. And then he would drive her down to the polling place, and usher her into the building.

When Grandma would enter her private little voting booth, she would quietly mark her ballot. With her abusive husband standing just on the other side of the curtain, she would mark her own choices on it. Usually (she said later) she would vote the exact opposite of what he'd said. And then she'd hand her ballot to the attendant, smile at her husband, and let her escort her home. He never knew how she voted, and she never let on that she wasn't voting his little list. Why risk another beating?

I think of Grandma every time my ballot arrives in the mail. And I wonder how many women there are in my county, staring helplessly at the mail-in ballot on the kitchen table, who would really rather not tangle with a controlling mate.

pax

Thin Black Line wrote:

I went over the lunch hour and didn't have much of a line at all. Plenty of un-highlighted bar codes next to the names of the people who did not show
up to vote today. I did not have to show an ID of any sort.

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What state are you in??? what county?

Do other folks here find that they have to show a photo ID a bill or a voter card that is mailed to your house before you vote?

In Delaware those are the rules, doesnt even matter if the poll workers know you or even if your their son (my mom is a poll worker she's 72)

I voted at 6PM and was in the frontdoor and out the backdoor in less than 3 minutes. Plenty of people were voting, but there was no wait at all. Optical scan machine worked great.

The cowboy hats came out.

It was great. All the precincts under one roof, the Armory. All the cowboy hats came out, so many folks wearing them, whole families of cowboy hats, and lots of coffee going around at 9 AM. It was like a big, well little, community kaffee klatch, people smiling and gabbing, lots of seniors doing their civic thing as directing folks to the right precinct by the color of the helium balloon. It was real happening, I loved it Just show your ID and fill in a 2 sided page with dots, about 5 min wait in line, and then get a cup of coffee and gab. Pheasant and duck season ya know.

Voting for me went smooth in PA. It seems like every time I vote more people are there. And I always vote between 430 and 500. The best thing is in my area it seems to be getting more repulicans. Not that they are the best, but they go more with my beliefs. The best person to represent my area would be me

No problems in Wolf Creek Twp. PA, got right in and right out.

Not a single Democrat sign in the yard at the municipal building, heavily republican area.

No problem. Used the electronic machine (Diebold ?) here in CA and it was pretty smooth. After I voted I checked the playback carefully to make sure it stated how I voted and then read the paper roll back-up as it printed, and it too recorded exactly how I voted. I don't know enough about how the system is connected to know if it's really secure, but the act of voting was fairly straightforward. No line.

Throw in my two cents. Went around 5:30 here in Tennesse took about an hour for each of us( wife and I had to trade off the little girl) Turnout very good according to two of the volunteers. Said it was steady lines all day long. Touchscreens here this year new, ES$S machines. So the lines more than likely caused by the "new fangled" technology. Gotta agree with above about technology not belonging in the polling place. All it's doing is slowing things down for everybody. One of the machines went down while I was in line. Just shut itself off. Overheard conversation with election volunteer was it thought it was closing time....

Very smooth.. in and out in less than 10 mins.

We had Diebold machines.

My precinct is so small that we only have one machine. But, as always, everything went smoothly. Interestingly, turnout was pretty low. In the 2004 election, there were almost 900 ballots cast when I came in to vote, this time around, there were 489 ballots cast; my precinct is predominately Republican.

If the Republicans are counting on turnout to pull this one off, they're most likely screwed, based upon the low turn out in my precinct.

I have voted by absentee ballot since the year after the electronic machines came out. In the PRK, with all of the propositions, it is nice to sit and read an item, again, before casting a ballot.

In and out in 7 minutes. No muss, no fuss!

I spent more time in the car going to the location. Major road construction with two districts voting in the same place = gridlock. Overall I zipped in, got my ballot and waited in line. I had to tell the poll worker that I would not vote in the handicap both twice. I said there was no reason I could not stand for a minute and leave it open in case.

I had planned my voting before I went, I knew who and what.

Went to the wrong polling place on accident.. they are about 50 yards away from each other and I just aimed at the bigger sign.

Had to show ID... I used my CCW permit which is one of the 17 or so acceptable forms

BS'ed with the little old ladies at the check-in portion. Took about 5 minutes to punch in my choices from my prepared sample ballot. 8 pages of choices on the ol' Diebold. Ended up not voting on some of the 12-15 or so referendums I didn't understand nor have time to look up.

Got my little "I voted" sticker to add to my collection and got some beer to kick back and watch how the rest of America voted. Good day! Hopefully tomorrow won't suck!

Next year I think I'll join the growing crowd of absentee voters. I saw today that I had this week scheduled for vactation which I ended up not taking. Better safe than sorry!

We've always had scantron machines and this year there was 1 touch screen voting machine. After checking in you were asked if you'd like to try it. I requested a traditional ballot. After finishing I asked the elderly ladies running the polling place if it was a diebold machine. They had no idea and I clearly just confused them. One did eventually say yes and asked if I tried it, because it was great.

I'm not especially happy that people are voting on such insecure machines to start with, but then for the people running the poling place to not have any idea of the potential dangers of them is really extra scary. I'm fairly confident I would have no problem doing something nefarious to the machine.

I was in and out in 10 min. We had the new touch screen voting machines. went back and rechecked all my votes for errors...none

Didn't look like to many people showed up...not very many names signed

but all in all everything was fine.

I am actually very surprised...

No matter how many times we are mistreated, we go back to the same folks just like a beaten wife... I voted 3rd party, hoping that everyone else would feel the same that I did.

I was kind of upset because I had to go to my parents house for the day (still in same state), but I forgot my voter's registration card. I was unable to vote, but it didn't really matter. The candidate I wanted to win lost by about 100,000 votes. In West Virginia, that's a large number.

No problems - even though, for first time, it was via Deibold machine.

Used my GA handgun carry permit for ID.