So, I just voted in the fl primary. And it was not a good experience.

[glowing]

We had to turn OFF our cell phones before entering the building. No picture policy. Then, I go to sign in and the lady questions my signature from my I'D with my picture and address on it. She's not sure that my handwriting is a match. I literally emptied my purse with bills and cc and voter I'D card. Finally, she says ok. However, this is not the first time they have tried to play this game with me. I vote everytime there is a primary OR an election. And while I'm 31, most would assume that I am 26. As well, I live in the part of the county that that is red, red, red. I honestly think it's all a hoax. If I hadn't made a stink and emptied my purse, she would have given me a "we'll see if you qualify later ballot". I wonder now how many of these grey haired republican poll workers try this game with the younger crowd or someone with darker shade to their skin than mine.

It's going to be an interesting election year; that's for sure.

Oh almost forgot, the opti scan is supposed to work any way u insert the card. Today, the only optiscan was having issues with ballots fed right side up.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Dollars to donuts you weren't the only one to have a poor experience today. :^(

[glowing]

2. I'll be interested to hear any other problems happening.

the 3 way senate race is going to make for some crazy politics coming up.

[brooklynite]

3. Depending on where you are...

You usually have an immediate right to go to Court and get a Order allowing you to vote. They assume most people don't want to go through the trouble, and therefore offer the provisional ballot.

[marybourg]

4. You're displaying overt ageism. Her's is only guessed at. nt.

[glowing]

9. perhaps. but it easier to tell someone 18 - 30 that they can't vote; unless they are really into

politics and know their rights. and this is only the third or fourth time since voting that I have had this issue. now, if I have my husband or son with me, I breeze right through. it's when going alone I have issues. this has only occurred at this precinct. I have moved three times. the first time I was assigned to this precinct according to my apt address. I had my maiden name then. I was questioned the very first time I was able to vote in Florida and that was in 2004. Then, due to hurricane displacement, I had to move. I was never questioned on my legitamacy married or not in the years I lived there. When we bought our home in 07, I was moved back to this precinct. Again, I was questioned anytime I showed up alone.

They ask for a photo I.D. to match your face and address and signature. It doesn't look different than my signature now. They should also realize the DMV sig on the photo is electronic. It doesn't look the exact same as a pen in paper as the digital imprint on plastic. Even still there was no reason to question my legitimacy.

[MineralMan]

5. Even though photo id's are not required in MN, I always take

both my MNDL and passport with me, just in case I'm questioned or if I find that someone has already used my name to vote.

[Parker CA]

6. Report polling station to local dem headquarters. Fug that crap. nt

[Change Happens]

7. My wife and I voted earlier, no problems at all, nice positive experience

Yes, they were all pukes working there! I walked in and asked out loud:

"Where do proud Democrats vote?"

There was more than one line there, so they told us to go in one of them :)

[EC]

8. What's the point of hassling you in a primary

election? It won't affect her anyway...

[glowing]

10. because it flags me in the general. and we have many non-partisan candidates like

school board members and judges. which I know about only one. so I don't even vote for people I know nothing about and won't find enough about with a general Internet search. I normally try in the general to scoope myself on them; but still have abstained on some that I genuinely do not feel comfortable in choosing.

[glowing]

13. also sets up a trial run for the general and trying out dirty tricks. look at the sc

primary with the democratic senate candidates. messing with primaries sets up the general and who the republicans are going to face.

[IndianaGreen]

28. to make the voter think twice about voting in the Fall

this is harassment, pure and simple.

[EFerrari]

11. I had three poll workers tell me I wasn't on their list

when I was in Los Angeles for a few years. They expected me to just give up. Instead, I asked to see their print out and my name was right there. That was strange. We lived in a pretty blue precinct and we wondered if these women were trying to depress the turn out.

[fl_dem]

12. I voted in FL today and had no problems

well, other than the fact I was the only person there and I thought there would be a line since I went on my lunch hour. I sure hope the local dems stepped up to the polls today, our numbers aren't very strong here:

Registered Voters in Okaloosa County as of 08/04/2010

Republican 73,524

Democrat 29,847

Other 24,349

Total 127,720

[Roland99]

14. I'll be casting my first FL vote (Orange County) later today...I hope

I'm still registered in a different county (just bought a house so I'm in a diff. county as of two months ago). SUPPOSED to be able to change address on the day of the election at the precinct (according to the person on the phone) so we'll see.

[jberryhill]

15. "No picture policy."

Yes, to prevent vote-buying.

If you could take a picture of your ballot as-marked, then you can prove to someone for whom you voted.

Which means people could buy votes.

What's wrong with that?

[w4rma]

17. Not really. Because you can fill out a ballot take a picture of it. *Then* say you made a mistake

and ask for a replacement ballot. A no picture policy prevents nothing good in this case.

[gratuitous]

16. I can see the cell phone deactivated and no pictures policy

After all, you're at the polls to vote, not to be making or taking phone calls or taking photos. It could get disruptive very quickly with people calling or texting one another from inside the building or inside the voting booth. Make up your mind before you get your ballot.

As for the scrutiny over your signature, that may indeed have something to do with the content of your skin's melatonin. Were other voters subjected to the same watchfulness while you were there, or did they sail through without a second glance? And of course the computerized stuff was acting up; if it's operating flawlessly because of rigorous testing beforehand, there's less opportunity to monkey with the results.

[glowing]

31. no. I was told specifically it was so no pictures or videos were taken.

[amandabeech]

18. Was there a Dem poll watcher?

Just curious.

n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

19. No cell phones or cameras, because they might INTERFERE WITH THE MACHINES ?!?

That's what I was told in MD. Radio-frequency interference (RFI) from phones, radios, videocams, and other gadgets might interfere with the functioning of the machines and lead to ERRORS in the vote count! I was told this in person by one of the poll workers but have seen no documentation to back it up -- certainly nothing written by our courageous news stenographers. It seems to me there are three possibilities:

1. The machines really are sensitive to RFI, in which case a strong transmitter (say, ship-to-shore radio) just outside the polls would randomly scramble voting results. (Or try carrying a garage door opener inside?) Use in a heavily Dem district and the scrambled vote is virtually certain to be less favorable than the true vote. This should be sufficient basis to eliminate the machines altogether.

2. There is no evidence that RFI from videocams and phones affect the machines, but it provides a handy excuse for banning cell phones and cameras, except those in the hands of "responsible authorities". So no documentation of chicanery at the polls.

3. The non-cynical explanation. You'll have to make up your own, I don't have one.

[JoeyT]

25. Actually the interference thing could be true.

There's a kind of phone down here (Southern Linc Motorola I think they're available in Florida too.) that are absolutely terrible about interfering with electronics.
One model I used to own would actually reboot computers and was capable of switching a CPAP machine on and off when the phone was powered on or off or someone called it. It also made any speakers around pop horribly, TVs flickered or switched off, even some lights would flicker. Hospitals and doctors banned those specific phones even in the waiting rooms because they interfered with the equipment.

I have no idea why they're so bad about Gremlining up electronics. Best guess would be it had something to do with the Push To Talk feature.

[eppur_se_muova]

32. I'd love to take one of those to a DRE demo ...

"Hey, watch what happens to the vote total when I press this button!" Think that would upset the citizenry sufficiently to get the machines retired?

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AngryAmish]

21. Rule 34 on blue haired republican sluts?

I did a google search 7 minutes after you posted this the googled bots already picked this up - is it because we use google for our searches? Anyway, since you are first it is incumbent on you to Rule 34 blue haired republican sluts.

[LWolf]

22. This makes me grateful to live in my state.

Everybody votes by mail. We get voter pamphlets (or encyclopedias, depending on the number of things on the ballot,) and then a few weeks before election day we get our ballots in the mail. We fill them out and mail them back, or drop them off at a local drop-off box. Paper ballots marked with blue or black pen; no chads.

No lines, no confusion about identification or polling places or machines that act up.

[DUFan]

24. Here's why I can't use ballots by mail where I live (FL)

This is verbatim from the back of my voter's card. "A copy of your signature is maintained in the voter registration records so we may verify changes or verify your signature on a petition or mail-in ballot. If your signature changes, update it by requesting a Florida Voter Registration Application." Then, there is a phone number and website address. So, if someone doesn't like the way my signature looks that day, I assume it goes in the trash.

[LWolf]

26. It's different when mail is not the default system.

Voting by mail is the state-wide system in Oregon; everybody votes that way. Oregon's Election Division verifies the number of signatures and randomly selects (using a computer-generated report) samples of signatures to send to county election officials for individual verification.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. I take my passport EVERY TIME

and I know I should not to.

[Scurrilous]

27. I voted earlier today and sailed right through.

:thumbsup:

[The Backlash Cometh]

29. Lady did something similar to this to me years back.

Opened the secret sleeve, saw my ballot, then pretended to adjust the ballot in the sleeve which wouldn't go in the machine after one or two tries. She tried to slip it into a manual box that would be counted later.

I said, No. She shouldn't have looked at my ballot and I showed her out she could move the ballot and expose two inches of the bottom of it without exposing the ballot options, and how this would go through the machine if you didn't hold the other end too tightly.

She looked at me with this dumb hick look. I think she was picked for the job because she could pull "dumb" off easily.

I called the supervisor of election and chewed him out.

[Gaedel]

30. I went to the polls in Florida

Today at 7:30AM. I ran the gauntlet of candidates and candidates reps pushing flyers into my hand.

Folks at the door told me to get my ID out and to shut off my cell phone. Having been socialized in kindergarten in 1944, I was a "good little German" and shut off my phone as told.

I got to the ID lady and she took my drivers license and tried to scan it and it wouldn't take. she kept running it through and running it through. I kept up a rapid series of responses to the effect "that it sure was better when you just had a "journal book to sign". Since I am an old codger, she kept telling me it was better with computers.

Finally, the techie came over and tried my drivers license, still no luck. He told the lady to just put in my birth date. Right away it popped up and she gave me the card to take to my precinct desk to get a ballot.

They gave me a "mark-sense" ballot and told me to go to a booth and fill it out. I am 6'1" and the level of the "desk" in the little table was about 12 inches too low so I had to hunch over which was painful.

The partisan ballot was easy, but the judges and the school board were difficult. Every two-bit lawyer in Broward County who is having trouble chasing enough ambulances is trying to get on the government tit by running against a sitting judge.

As bad as Jebbie and Crist might have been in governing, they did make an active effort to appoint blacks and Hispanics to the bench. Every lawyer with a Jewish sounding name is running against the blacks and Hispanics in hope that the Democratic "condo commandos" will give them a government sinecure without regard to diversity in the courthouse.

Anyway, I voted and stuffed my ballot into the black hole of the "mark-sense" machine. They gave me an "I voted" sticker on my way out the door. Outside, the Catholic priest (we voted in the church hall) thanked me for doing my duty as a citizen and coming out to vote.

It wasn't too painful an experience.