No munchkins. No stickers. Just the knowlegde that I voted for the right person. Gotta go , heading to the kerry headquarters to phone bank.

As a member of the press, I've been subject to many many stories about overwhelmed elections boards and expectations of freaked out pollworkers and long lines. more even than most readers.

so I timed my visit to be between the morning and lunch crowds, about 10:30. i packed a snack, a bottle of water, my voter guide and plenty of reading material. i was ready for a good two hour wait if need be.

I walked to my polling place, in an oldfashioned fire house, and was STUNNED to see just three bored old ladies and one (empty) booth.

Seeing my expression, one of the ladies piped up, "No line!" and i responded, "but i packed a lunch!"

hahaha

i signed in and stepped aside to review my voter guide. three people came in in the interim. i then got in line, did my thing and rolled out... the whole thing, including the walk from my house, took 20 minutes.

I am shaking my head at my gullible eager-beaverness. I should have known better. this is a very low density area, and we have a zillion polling sites in this county. ah well, at least i am done.

but NO STICKER. dammit, where's all the stickers? i'm going to make my own, you watch me! ;)

Quoted from "mouth"
I was wearing my bright pink "My Bush Would Make a Better President" tshirt though and the nice old lady running my booth gave me a little shocked face. I guess they didn't wear shirts that talked about their private parts in her day. :wink:

I'm surprised that they didn't give you any flack about that. I thought that you weren't allowed to wear anything partisan to the polls. (Of course, I may be wrong.) Also, for the record, I think that is a great shirt.

I'm voting after work. There was a huge line when I drove past the place this morning. I'm taking my book.

Quoted from "Wockin Wobin"

Quoted from "Jack McGee"

Quoted from "Larry"
No voting for me today. :( My first time ever not voting. My absentee ballot was misfiled and sent to the wrong address and they were unable to rectify the mistake in time. I'll be on the long list of disenfranchised voters - hoping not to be part of some crazy circus featured on the Daily Show. Good luck Colorado (and Kerry)!

Man, you had until yesterday to vote by federal write in ballot. You only disenfranchised yourself by not making the effort.

Jack... Larry's right. Only a uniformed services voter or a U.S. citizen living outside the U.S. gets to use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot

True, and even then it's really hard to get everything squared away in time. I lived in France during the last election and I ended up not being able to vote, because I wasn't there early enough before the election, but because of where I was I couldn't get an absentee ballot. it's a pain. I got to vote this time though, with a sticker and everything.

I voted! and I got a sticker. I had to wait about an hour and a half and when i was leaving the line was out the door. (they had run it from one end of the church to the other

Quoted from "Larry"
My last hope was that they would fax me a new ballot, and that I would FedEx it back. I could not get a response from the Denver county officials given to me, and 866-OUR-VOTE said I was out of luck.

That's very unfortunate, Larry. Sorry to hear the system failed you. I wouldn't be surprised if your ballot gets forwarded after the election is over. That happened to me after the last election.

Quoted from "mouth"
I don't know anything officially but I can't imagine rules about what you where to vote could be legal. I mean, free speech and all. But I don't honestly know because I've never heard anything one way or the other.

You cannot campaign near a polling place. A partisan politial shirt can be construed as campaigning. A number of people wearing shirts or costumes have been barred or arrested (when they got rowdy).

Quoted from "Larry"

Quoted from "mouth"
I don't know anything officially but I can't imagine rules about what you where to vote could be legal. I mean, free speech and all. But I don't honestly know because I've never heard anything one way or the other.

You cannot campaign near a polling place. A partisan politial shirt can be construed as campaigning. A number of people wearing shirts or costumes have been barred or arrested (when they got rowdy).

Ah ok that makes much more sense to me. I was wondering how they could tell anyone what they can and cannot wear but I can understand the no campaigning thing.

Larry, you're entitled by law to cast a provisional ballot. Technically, they're suppose to review your voter eligibility and count your ballot.

Quoted from "Larry"
No voting for me today. :( My first time ever not voting. My absentee ballot was misfiled and sent to the wrong address and they were unable to rectify the mistake in time. I'll be on the long list of disenfranchised voters - hoping not to be part of some crazy circus featured on the Daily Show. Good luck Colorado (and Kerry)!

Here's a description of my friend Trapper's experience in a Chicago polling place today:

Quoted from "Trapper"
I have to say, my voting experience was a carnival of stupidity. I guess no matter how many times you explain something, no matter how many sheets of instructions you give someone, some people just can't figure out this crazy "voting" thing. What should have taken 15 minutes took 45 minutes. Some lady put her ballot in the verifying machine from the wrong precinct. This required them to harmlessly reset the machine to clear the error message. Everyone standing around at this point figured that since they reset the machine, that all of their votes would be wiped out. No matter how much the polling people tried to calmly explain that the machine doesn't COUNT the votes, people just couldn't get past the fact that they were somehow being disenfranchised. So the cellphones start coming out calling the "i've been oppressed" hot line and people are threatening to call their lawyers... yada yada yada... So finally the rabble of about 10 people leave, things quiet down. I insert my ballot and walk out. In addition to this were conversations like: "Sir, you over voted meaning you punched too many holes, would you like to keep your ballot or vote again?" "But I already voted" "I know you did sir, but you punched too many holes. You can either submit it if you know where you messed up or you can vote again" "Yes, but I already voted, why can't you accept my vote?" "Sir, we can accept it but you may have made an error, do you want to submit this one or fill out another one?" "I didn't make an error though" "This machine checks if you overvote or undervote. It checks for errors. It says you made one. This means you can re-vote" "But I already voted" ... So I have come to the conclusion that I am unsure America can survive. If we can't figure out how to fill out our own ballots how can we possibly expect to compete in the global marketplace? But I would like to add that the staff at the polling place was extremely understanding and did their best to ease the tension, even though it appeared most were looking for an excuse and not an explanation.

Quoted from "Mugsy Malone"
Here's a description of my friend Trapper's experience in a Chicago polling place today:

Friggin hysterical! Just goes to prove my point that people are dumb. And I hate them all...

Quoted from "SwingSprite"
I voted. Around 10:30. They had a new system: when the check people in, they assign a 'voter number', and someone in back records it. Apparently they;'re using this later to make sure they have as many votes counted as people checked in. Works for me.

I'm pretty sure they've been doing that by me for years. Though they did have another 2 jobs today... there was someone by the door (we have 3 districts in one polling place), probably to answer questions and handle provisional ballots (she had a box with a slot in it). There was also a new person at each district spot writing down names on a list in a book. I'm not sure what that was for.

I voted :)

Well, I voted.

My vote will apparently get counted in the State of New York - it certainly won't reach CO. I'll be able to verify this later through the public record.

So, good luck to Colorado. No sticker and no wait at my polling station. sigh now I join my fellow disenfranchised voters across the country as we wait and see.

I'm more concerned that he has a friend actually named "Trapper."