Voting Made Hard...

ARFlyer

ARFlyer

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ARFlyer
So I decided to do my god fearing civic duty and go vote. Typically only takes 5 minutes or at least I thought it should. An hour later I was still sitting against the wall as a guy conferred with the county on my voter status...

The story:

I showed up to the local rural church, handed the lady my ID, and waited as she looked me up in the binder. My name was nowhere to be found which confused her because I had my voter card in my wallet. After no luck she filled out a form, first of many to come, so they could call me in and ask about my status.

An elderly man took the carbon copy, my driver's license and proceeded to call the county election office. 20 minutes later and several loud "What did ya say" and "his birthday is ONE ONE..." no progress had been made. Another phone call and more yelling they finally came to the conclusion I exist but also don't exist. The state system had me as a voter but their local computer system did not. So the order was that I'd only be allowed to vote provisionally. Three more carbon copy forms, two envelopes and an hour I had finally made my vote. As I finished, I was told by the head lady that the ballot would be looked at by the election board and that a decision would be made within two weeks. I will receive a letter telling me if my vote was cast or thrown out.

I'm starting to see why almost no one votes...
 
Don't you have to register in your local voting district?
 
Sorry for your inconvenience,glad you voted.
 
You just have to mail in a form with your address, county and driver's license number. They will send back a postcard with your polling location and information as listed in the system. Which I had with me and showed the lady when she couldn't find me. However, apparently you have to be in THE BOOK or your not official.
 
If there were any questions about my eligibility to vote I'd rather put up with some inconvenience than know they weren't checking and illegals were voting.

Excpect thread lock in 5..4..3..2..1.
 
Stingray Don said:
In some cities you need to wait until your name shows up in the obituaries in order to ensure a vote will be cast in your name.
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One of the guys in the line behind me joked about that. A few of us had a good laugh.
 
ARFlyer said:
So I decided to do my god fearing civic duty and go vote. Typically only takes 5 minutes or at least I thought it should. An hour later I was still sitting against the wall as a guy conferred with the county on my voter status...

The story:

I showed up to the local rural church, handed the lady my ID, and waited as she looked me up in the binder. My name was nowhere to be found which confused her because I had my voter card in my wallet. After no luck she filled out a form, first of many to come, so they could call me in and ask about my status.

An elderly man took the carbon copy, my driver's license and proceeded to call the county election office. 20 minutes later and several loud "What did ya say" and "his birthday is ONE ONE..." no progress had been made. Another phone call and more yelling they finally came to the conclusion I exist but also don't exist. The state system had me as a voter but their local computer system did not. So the order was that I'd only be allowed to vote provisionally. Three more carbon copy forms, two envelopes and an hour I had finally made my vote. As I finished, I was told by the head lady that the ballot would be looked at by the election board and that a decision would be made within two weeks. I will receive a letter telling me if my vote was cast or thrown out.

I'm starting to see why almost no one votes...
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Sorry you had such a time. In this day and age, I am amazed at the binders and carbon copies.

Here in the Norfolk, VA it is all computer. You show your photo ID, they look you up in the online database, hand you a chip card and you vote on touchscreen.

Now, the irony is that with all that tech, they still had a very outdated ballot (included everyone who had ever registered as a candidate (something lie 20 names for the Republican ballot).
 
Early voter turnout in Arkansas was nearly double that of any previous election. It is a lot less crowded than voting on election day and no justification is required to be allowed to vote early. The polls are open for about 2 weeks.
 
Graueradler said:
Early voter turnout in Arkansas was nearly double that of any previous election. It is a lot less crowded than voting on election day and no justification is required to be allowed to vote early. The polls are open for about 2 weeks.
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I was surprised how many people were at the polls today. I remember growing up that it was often empty when I tagged along with my parents.
 
geneseib said:
Thousands have died to give you the right to vote. And you're complaining about a little inconvenience?
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A 'little' inconvenience?

I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for the experience he described. It is crap like that that makes people leave the polls honestly wondering if their vote was actually recorded/tallied.
 
Did anyone shoot at you, IEDs, men with sharp sticks, risk of flood fire or mosquito borne disease ?

Doesn't sound like it was hard.
 
Recently move or anything that would require registration in a new political subdivision or district? If so, you may have registered after the cut off for the book.
 
In Washington, ballots arrive in the mail and either mailed back or drop it off at a number of locations. Very convenient. And, because most people have completed their ballots before 'election day', we don't have to endure the last-minute surge of political ads.
 
Two words.... hanging chad


But likely Andrew was still in nappies when that was going on...


Are we any closer to a system that would permit voting via interwebz? So many other interactions with the Fed are available via secure connections and sites that I'm sorta astounded that voting is still stuck in 30+ year old technology.
 
Filled out my ballot yesterday with the provided ball point pen. Color in the ovals, don't go outside the lines, then run it through the scanner. Took about five minutes from parking to leaving. Almost two miles from the house, too.
 
I am in a VERY small rural town and going to the firehall and vote usually takes 5 mins 6 if it is busy.
 
Hearing at least one person in Virginia didn't have to fill out their ballot, it was already marked for Rubio.
 
I don't get to vote in the primaries, but when I do vote it's been by mail, for at least 10-15 years.
 
I write myself in. When the outcome of the election relies on 3 out of 83 counties, there's not much reason to vote.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Two words.... hanging chad


Are we any closer to a system that would permit voting via interwebz? So many other interactions with the Fed are available via secure connections and sites that I'm sorta astounded that voting is still stuck in 30+ year old technology.
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The chad stuff should have never made it past the first court hearing. Once you start voting, you can't change how you count votes. Should it have been litigated prior to the start of voting, then that would be different.

As to online voting....not going to happen for a lot of years. The government can't seem to keep our id's secure (mine and the wife's got compromised by the OPM breach) so no way that voting would be any more secure. It would be too tempting a target by way too many people.
 
EdFred said:
I write myself in. When the outcome of the election relies on 3 out of 83 counties, there's not much reason to vote.
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I forget which recent federal election would have been different with only a single vote changed in each and every voting precinct in the US. Saying your vote doesn't count is a cop out.
 
One recent election I didn't have my wallet with me when I went to vote. Didn't get to. My bad actually, I didn't mind the ID check.
 
No problem, I just snickered that you apparently can't get OFF the ballot in VA. We had one democrat and a half a dozen republicans who were no longer running. At least they hung up signs telling you that in the voting stations.

At least my local district stopped using the god awful, fradulent, DIEBOLD electronic machines. They went to the scantron forms like your kid's standardized test use. You can have as many people voting as you like (all they need is a pen to color in the dots) and it's recorded (with the paper ballot retained) in seconds. If you got some disabled person, you can hand him his ballot in his wheel chair or take it out to him in the car, easy peasy.
 
Fearless Tower said:
A 'little' inconvenience?

I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for the experience he described. It is crap like that that makes people leave the polls honestly wondering if their vote was actually recorded/tallied.
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The people who run those primaries, caucuses, and general elections are often volunteers. They might make a couple hundred bucks but they volunteered nonetheless and do not have the authority to make decisions like that.

What else could they have done? Imagine being on their side of the table...Someone gives you a book that has every registered voter in the precinct in it. A guy walks up, says he's registered and wants to vote. He's not in the book. So you just let him vote anyway?
 
Howcome federal election day doesn't constitute a federal holiday? It is in most other countries. It would certainly improve voter turnout.
 
Craig said:
I forget which recent federal election would have been different with only a single vote changed in each and every voting precinct in the US. Saying your vote doesn't count is a cop out.
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My vote has not counted since I've started voting, and the results haven't even been close. It's not a cop out when it's fact. Plus when NONE of the candidates share my views, there's no point.
 
rachelk.tailwinds said:
What else could they have done? Imagine being on their side of the table...Someone gives you a book that has every registered voter in the precinct in it. A guy walks up, says he's registered and wants to vote. He's not in the book. So you just let him vote anyway?
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My issue is that in this day, it should not be that hard to verify. Period.
 
flyingron said:
We had one democrat and a half a dozen republicans who were no longer running. At least they hung up signs telling you that in the voting stations.
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I don't know whether it reflects voter ignorance or protests but every republican that had dropped out had votes registered in Arkansas. Huckabee had over 4,000
 
murray-2016.jpg


He gets my vote!
 
Fearless Tower said:
My issue is that in this day, it should not be that hard to verify. Period.
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That's true. But it's the government: they are expected to be 20 years behind in technology in all facets. However, paper is much harder to hack into than a computer so if it's keeping our polls secure, then I'm fine with it. (I know, easy for me to say since I wasn't the one waiting around for an hour). And just to be clear, I'm not saying paper is better, I have no idea what goes into keeping that sort of information safe. I'm just not going to complain about an extra verification step for something as vital as voting.


....TSA; though, that's a totally different story. ;)
 
You should really need to show a copy of your property tax bill in order to vote. :eek:
 
EdFred said:
You should really need to show a copy of your property tax bill in order to vote. :eek:
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...But, I dont known any property...






Wait a minute, I see what you did there...
 
rachelk.tailwinds said:
That's true. But it's the government: they are expected to be 20 years behind in technology in all facets. However, paper is much harder to hack into than a computer so if it's keeping our polls secure, then I'm fine with it. (I know, easy for me to say since I wasn't the one waiting around for an hour). And just to be clear, I'm not saying paper is better, I have no idea what goes into keeping that sort of information safe. I'm just not going to complain about an extra verification step for something as vital as voting.


....TSA; though, that's a totally different story. ;)
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Actually, paper is much easier to hack into. Give me a pencil and a very small amount of social engineering, and I could hack paper fairly easily. It is much harder to hack into a computer system.
 
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