Just early voted in TX. Felt so good!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4th in line when they opened at 7a

You put your ID in an empty aluminum pie plate. They look you up in a computer. The computer guy did not have his mask over his nose! You get a receipt with a 4 digit code. Move on, and sign the ledger. They tell you to keep the pen, compliments of the county. Woohoo.

Somehow my machine was stuck on spanish. So I just looked for Democratico. Mayor and some positions have no party affiliation. BTW, Texas got rid of straight party voting.

Machines extremely antiquated. You have to dial to correct spot then hit enter. They give you a pencil to hit "enter" but can't dial with a pencil.

All in all, been waiting 4 years to cast a vote against Covid-45 and it is a great day!

[Statistical]

1. Glad you worked through the machine snafu. You know what is never antiquated?

Paper ballots. Never understood the need for spending huge amounts of money on machines that have problems (usually at the worst possible time).

Paper ballot + pen/pencil = universally understood. Can be counted by humans and machines. Is inherently a paper trail.

[FoxNewsSucks]

3. We get a choice here, and I always use a paper ballot.

As far as the machines, I think a lot of the "problems" are intentional

[Laura PourMeADrink]

8. Agree. What state are u in? Do you have non-party affiliated

voting? I know I should know, but wonder if that's why they eliminated straight party voting in TX, because they couldn't figure out how to program with the new non-party positions.

[FoxNewsSucks]

30. Kansas

I don't remember the last time I saw a ballot that allowed one-punch partyline voting. It's been a long time.

I do remember reading an editorial 15-20 years ago when they eliminated it. It was being sold to the public as "making people vote for the best candidate, not the party", but it was pushed by republicons. Republicons here are incredibly aggressive about billboards, yard signs, ads, etc. I don't mean republicon voters doing it, but the local and state party saturating the area with signs. Clearly they are counting on the fact that the average voter doesn't know much difference other than president and maybe senator / representative .

So instead of voting a party line ticket, they would then be forced to go down the line, and name recognition would result in republicons getting more votes.

They also wanted the party designation removed from the ballot completely, like it is for judicial retention.

Republicons are thorough in making sure they don't miss a dirty trick.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

34. No it's because in Harris County in 2018 all the Republican judges got replaced with Dem judges

And the Republicans went ballistic. They have a long history of voting straight ticket, but now that it’s working against them, they wanted to ditch it.

They are counting on Dems being too lazy or too disinterested to vote for the down ballot races, which there are many of - very long ballot. I’m hoping they are wrong.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

5. Absolutely. Flashbacks of growing up with #2 pencils and

Being very diligent with making sure the boxes were fully filled in.

Can the federal government mandate pb's? Or does each state have to agree?

[Statistical]

9. The feds can't mandate to the states how to run their elections but...

like interstate highway funding they can provide optional money with strings attached.

In my ideal world every state would be like OR. Universal registration of all eligible voters. Universal mailed paper ballots. You can then mail it back, drop it off, or if you really want to vote in person either early or on election day.

[flibbitygiblets]

15. And you can track your ballot online

I tracked my ballot from the moment it was mailed out to me, to the moment it was received by the election office [yesterday].

[Sherman A1]

2. Super!

[SheltieLover]

4. Great!

I voted a little over a week ago & am still

[d_b]

6. I just voted here in NC

[Laura PourMeADrink]

11. Turning it blue!!!!!

[LAS14]

50. Don't forget to log this in the OFFICIAL I VOTED thread.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14258305

[Deacon Blue]

7. Which County, Laura?

Working early voting right now in Travis. Old voter qualifying and wheel voting machines replaced by iPads and paper ballot marking machines. The voter takes the printed-out selections to a scanner which has no internet connections. We have never had a line longer than 35 minutes, even when we were slammed.

People walk right in and vote. Whenever I work Election Day, I remind the voters in line that next time, maybe they should vote early?

I love helping. Good Luck!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. Kudos to you. Made a point of thanking all the poll workers. It is

It is courageous of you.

I'm in Mclennan. Good to know Travis has modernized !

I thought being so close to Baylor, our location would be swamped. But then remembered the students there are mostly conservatives - apolitical low-infos. Good!

[BraKez2]

20. Mclennan

I lived in Mclennan county for a little while (China Springs) when I was working for a trucking company in Clifton. Nice place but glad I'm back in a Blue state (VA). Here's to hoping Texas turns blue this year .

[Laura PourMeADrink]

45. Like Clifton. Artsy. I am only here because I married a Texan.

Didn't know when you do that you cant leave . But have a promise we can move back to CT at retirement!!

I love VA. It's a beautiful state. Especially through Shenandoah and wine country..mom and pop businesses & restaurants, no Walmart s

[Sucha NastyWoman]

35. Is that the county Pete Sessions is running in.

He will probably win and that’s too bad because he was being groomed for being a Republican power player in the house, when he got his surprise defeat in his previous house seat in 2018. Don’t think he really lives there though.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

46. Yes ... But on Sept within MOE

AUSTIN, TX, September 1, 2020 – Buoyed by significant slippage for President Donald
Trump at the top of the ballot, Democratic challenger Rick Kennedy is within striking
distance of Republican candidate Pete Sessions in the race for the Congressional
District 17 seat. Sessions holds a narrow 45-42 lead over Kennedy, with 13 percent of
voters still undecided in a survey of 1,160 likely voters conducted by Lincoln Park
Strategies last week.

[Lonestarblue]

12. Thank you for working the polls.

I’m in Travis, too, and it took me no more than twenty minutes to vote. I love the new machines. I hope all of Texas gets them eventually.

[Trueblue Texan]

14. nope. Give me a paper ballot.

I know too much about computers to trust them.

[LeftInTX]

16. This is going to be Bexar County's first general election with new vote anywhere "voter centers"

Sounds like we have the same new machines as Travis.


Did you have the "voter centers" in 2018 or earlier?

We had horrendous lines on election day during the primary because everyone just showed up at their early voting site and didn't go to the precinct sites. The precinct sites were dead with no voters. It was really weird. (We had record turnout for the primary LOL...It makes you wonder how many people don't vote in previous elections because they go to their early voting site at 6 pm on Election Day instead of their precinct??)

Anyway, we will have at least 284 voting centers election day. We are hoping to be able to steer voters to the precinct sites to avoid the lines. We had trouble convincing them in March that they could vote anywhere.


Any voters can vote at any of the 284 locations on election day. I hope they don't all jam into 40!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. In the primary, we went to our precinct site and it was closed. No one

told us the place we had voted for for many years wasn't a polling place anymore. Not even a sign on door. What it must be like in a cocktail lounge with repukes brainstorming over martinis on how to suppress vote.

On the flip side, makes me vow to pay to pay a lot more attention to state and local politics from now forward.

[Hortensis]

23. Same here. They've beyond doubt been sharing and studying what worked,

what didn't, and why in all their states at all levels. By far most power theft has been state and local; I'd read that but still not pay nearly enough attention. Of course, this is GA. In our blood-red district it'd strictly be fallings out among thieves.

Hear they all hate our scumbag Doug Collins these days for running against their own appointed thief. Kelly Loeffler, who's behind. Go, Raphael Warnock!!!

Happy voting day.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

47. Man won't it be grand when Biden wins Georgia Hortensis??

I bet I'll be able to hear you scream from here.

Always been so curious...how do Republicans all get on the same page with this suppresion crap? Is it just something they all know instinctively? Or is there some secret means of communication? You'd think we'd have more everyday whistleblowers...like the wait staff member who secretly recorded Romney making his infamous 47% comments.

[Hortensis]

54. Lol, over the noise from your part of TX? Just maybe!

We have 2 senate seats in play also. GO, Warnock and Ossoff!

Boy, you'd think! Or how about the staff at the secluded, fly-in resort where Scalia was secretly meeting with nearly 40 other guests who've never been identified? Silent to the grave?

Mean cons are on the same embattled page, of course, because society moved on without them and they'll always lose elections they don't partner with hostile forces to steal. They think they can get their imaginary Ozzie and Harriet-land back, and smite us into silence, under RW dictatorship. Our grandparents almost left slamming the door on their fascist ambitions too late also.

[Trueblue Texan]

13. man! There are a lot of folks from Texas on DU!

We really should get together sometime after Covid.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

19. Yes! Maybe at Willie's Farm Aid concert! 2022

[Lithos]

32. We used to do DU gatherings back in the first few years of DU

would be an interesting thing - post-COVID.

There have always been a lot of us Texans here on DU.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

36. We used yo do that back in the early days uf DU.

Would love to do it again.

[griloco]

17. I know what you mean! It felt so good I went back and voted again and again!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

21. Yes! And mail in and in person! When we get caught and

Go to court we can use the "president told us to" defense.

[griloco]

24. 😆...and if Putin can why can't I?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

28. And why would Covid-45 put his money in China if it resulted in

Such a high tax bill?

[Delmette2.0]

22. I turned in my ballot to the electios office drive through.

And I got a "I Voted" sticker. I sticker them to my laptop. I am so happy and proud to add another sticker.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

26. Let me guess...you live in blue state? ;)

[Delmette2.0]

31. Let's call it purple, Montana.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

52. My bill and sil just bought a house up

There in mountains. Their escape from the world

You're a covid hot spot now eh?

[Delmette2.0]

53. Yes, the whole state is. We have just over a million people.

The hospitals are all over loaded. I am very worried for the rural areas, their hospitals are not as prepared as the cities and most of people are more than an hours drive to an equipped hospital.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

37. We have 11 of those in Harris County

[Laura PourMeADrink]

38. Great to know! At least it's sounding like our blue parts of TX are

Getting something good done!

[ananda]

25. Thank you!

!!!

[Hugin]

27. !

[George II]

29. Congratulations. That's another one! So happy that we delivered our ballots to Town Hall on Oct 6.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

39. Plus 2. Me and my husband who despises trump!

[MagickMuffin]

33. The Texas republicons got rid of the Straight Party ticket

Once again they try to make it hard for voters.


In Tarrant County they updated our machines. We sign in get a blank ballot, feed it into the machine, select the candidates, then print, then insert into the scanner.

Since going to this system I can now early vote. Before this system early voting was electronic only with no paper trail. I'll miss voting on the General Election Day, but I'm alright knowing I voted for ALL Democratic candidates in Texas.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

40. So does it help to have only some paper trail? Can a test

Be done after the fact to prove a paper ballot "took"?

[MagickMuffin]

42. That I don't know for a fact

But my ballot printed out with the candidates that I selected.

I actually prefer filling in all the little squares. I was never sure my vote counted with the older paper ballots before this system, either.


I think we should have a system where you can track your ballot all the way through the process. That would eliminated doubt.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

43. Yes, you'd know your vote made it. But more worrisome it

Knowing that your vote for X made it to the final totals of all Xs.

[Gothmog]

41. My youngest and I voted Thursday

[Laura PourMeADrink]

44. +1. It wasn't near as scary as I envisioned. Seemed much

Safer than the grocery store

[LAS14]

49. Don't forget to log this in the OFFICIAL I VOTED thread.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14258305

[LAS14]

48. Don't forget to log this in the OFICIAL I VOTED thread.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14258305