I Voted

[W2R]

Yesterday I heard on the news that people lined up for early in-person voting in a nearby New Orleans suburb were having to wait in line for as long as five and a half hours. That's insane! In my suburb, in the same Parish (=County), the wait time was averaging 45 minutes. Still, one never knows. They might move some voting machines around to make the wait times more equal. Anyway, I had no idea that so many voters would turn out!

We are still determined to vote in person on Election Day, because we have always done that and want to do it no matter how long the wait. Old habits die hard. But now, we are making plans to possibly spend several hours in line. I'll dust off my old walker that I haven't used since my knee surgery last year, and take it with me. It has a seat so I can sit on that. F doesn't have a walker but he is going to take my portable fold-up "camp chair". We'll take rain gear in case it rains, since lines that long with social distancing will be mostly outside, I'd imagine. What an experience this is going to be.

So glad that apparently everyone here who can, is planning to vote whether early, absentee, or on Election Day like us.

 

[JDARNELL]

Yesterday I heard on the news that people lined up for early in-person voting in a nearby New Orleans suburb were having to wait in line for as long as five and a half hours. That's insane! In my suburb, in the same Parish (=County), the wait time was averaging 45 minutes. Still, one never knows. They might move some voting machines around to make the wait times more equal. Anyway, I had no idea that so many voters would turn out!

We are still determined to vote in person on Election Day, because we have always done that and want to do it no matter how long the wait. Old habits die hard. But now, we are making plans to possibly spend several hours in line. I'll dust off my old walker that I haven't used since my knee surgery last year, and take it with me. It has a seat so I can sit on that. F doesn't have a walker but he is going to take my portable fold-up "camp chair". We'll take rain gear in case it rains, since lines that long with social distancing will be mostly outside, I'd imagine. What an experience this is going to be.

So glad that apparently everyone here who can, is planning to vote whether early, absentee, or on Election Day like us.

I think it’s good that everyone votes no matter who you vote for. Perhaps if anything comes out of this year it’s that people realize voting is a privilege we shouldn’t take for granted.

 

[harllee]

Personally I think it is great that most of our Forum members are voting--many have already voted. Some are willing to stand in line for hours to vote. Thank you!!

 

[Poopycat]

Polls open at 6 am on Election Day here. This state doesn’t have early voting and it is difficult to do absentee or mail in voting. Well, not terribly difficult, but still a pain, like having to get the ballot notarized. And I’m not totally trusting of the mail service these days. So my plan is to get up at 4 am and walk to the polling site as soon as I’m dressed. The polling site is about a five-minute walk.

I have a fear that I may still face a really long line, even at 4:15 am. But I am sure it will be better than the line I’d face at noon. I will drink as little water as possible and pop some Imodium pills so I’ll be able to stand in line for hours if I have to.

And it’s absolutely ridiculous that some areas of the country face 10-hour lines to vote, or even two-hour lines.

 

[harllee]

Wow, your state makes it hard to vote. If you are facing an hours long line to vote you may also want to take a folding chair to sit down. The last time I voted on actual election day (years ago) I had to stand in line a couple of hours in the rain. I said never again. My state has "curbside voting" for older/disabled people--do you have that in your state?

 

[powerplay]

I received my ballot in the mail Friday evening the 16th. Saturday I filled out the ballot and dropped it in an official drop box at 1:20 pm. Tuesday morning I received an e-mail from the county that my ballot had been accepted and will be counted. Vote by mail is so nice to have in my state. I really like the time to read through the voter's manual and research anything I want further. It feels good to have it done. There are also a number of important local measures so it's much more than a presidential voting year.

 

[ut2sua]

Polls open at 6 am on Election Day here. This state doesn’t have early voting and it is difficult to do absentee or mail in voting. Well, not terribly difficult, but still a pain, like having to get the ballot notarized. And I’m not totally trusting of the mail service these days. So my plan is to get up at 4 am and walk to the polling site as soon as I’m dressed. The polling site is about a five-minute walk.

I have a fear that I may still face a really long line, even at 4:15 am. But I am sure it will be better than the line I’d face at noon. I will drink as little water as possible and pop some Imodium pills so I’ll be able to stand in line for hours if I have to.

And it’s absolutely ridiculous that some areas of the country face 10-hour lines to vote, or even two-hour lines.

This ^^^ is horrible. People should demand an easier way to get your vote in. Where I live, it took us 5 mins to drive to the nearest drop box to drop ours. With this bottleneck that you have in your state, your vote will count more as many will probably not be able (or willing) to vote. Great planning on your part. I appreciate your determination and good luck on election day.

 

[lemming]

I voted in Virginia in a drive thru line last Wednesday. This was a different location then my county center which is the normal location. They took over the DMV lot and had room to put a lot of cars through in good time. Applause to the poll workers who had to hustle up and down that lane to pick up drivers licenses then in the next section to bring out your ballot. I forgot to bring my own pen but I will assume/pretend that they sanitize them.
They asked me several times if I had requested a mail in ballot so it is a concern to them.

 

[audreyh1]

I’d love a drive through option for voting!

But we use machines in TX - no pens used except for signing the list before going to vote.

 

[Montecfo]

I voted in Virginia in a drive thru line last Wednesday. This was a different location then my county center which is the normal location. They took over the DMV lot and had room to put a lot of cars through in good time. Applause to the poll workers who had to hustle up and down that lane to pick up drivers licenses then in the next section to bring out your ballot. I forgot to bring my own pen but I will assume/pretend that they sanitize them.
They asked me several times if I had requested a mail in ballot so it is a concern to them.

Also in Virginia, poll workers in our county told us 80,000 mailing ballots had been requested and only 20,000 had been returned.Those who had requested the mail in ballots could not vote in person without bringing their mail in ballot and surrendering it. So they try to identify those folks before they've gotten all the way to the front of the line and wasted their time and everyone else's.

 

[Montecfo]

And it’s absolutely ridiculous that some areas of the country face 10-hour lines to vote, or even two-hour lines.

10 hours really? Can't imagine that or the complaints that generates for the county election board.

I have voted in every election since 1980 and I never have waited in a long line since 1984, when I wait until after work. What I find is that the best time to vote is not in the early morning or in the evening but at 10:30 a.m. or 2:30 in the afternoon. I usually walk right up and cast my ballot.

This has been my experience in several different states, but I'm sure it does not hold for everyone.

 

[RunningBum]

Virginia has a site to check voting history and absentee ballot status. I dropped mine off Monday late morning, and it was recorded today (2 days later) sometime between noon and 6pm. There's also a "ballotscout.org" site to track the mailing process, and it shows when the ballot was sent to me, but does not register as received back by them, probably because I skipped the mail on the return. I knew it wouldn't show as sent or in transit, but thought it might show when received.

 

[rodi]

I was a bit surprised to be tapping a screen for all my selections, *then* having the device print out my ballot which was then fed through a scanner to count the votes.

When I voted in person last week, like you, I was surprised to be tapping a screen for my choices, then have the selections printed out.

Unlike your experience, the printout was then folded into an envelope (similar to the mail in ballot envelope), the envelope signed, and dropped in the ballot box.

I suspect this process for early voting is two fold:
- 1) there are rules in California that they can't start counting early and/or mail in ballots till election day when the poll closes. This means they have to store the ballots till just before the election. They process the signature verification right away and log that you voted... but don't prep the ballots to be fed into the machines till the day of, and don't push the "start button" till the polls close.
- 2) rules were put in place several years ago, in my state, that there had to be a "paper trail" for recounts or discrepancies. This rule came about after it was discovered that some of the voting machines could be easily hacked. They ended up decertifying a bunch of brand new voting machines.

(Just as an aside - we had discussions about the process when I was growing up. Mom was a manager at the county registrar of voters. When Florida had the hanging chad thing - she noted the 'butterfly ballot' issue right away - because it's something they worked hard to avoid here. We were ballot nerds in our dinner discussions.)

 

[Poopycat]

Wow, your state makes it hard to vote. If you are facing an hours long line to vote you may also want to take a folding chair to sit down. The last time I voted on actual election day (years ago) I had to stand in line a couple of hours in the rain. I said never again. My state has "curbside voting" for older/disabled people--do you have that in your state?

This state is one of the few left that doesn’t do early in-person voting. Not for seniors, not for anybody. You can do mail-in or absentee; they are different in this state. If I remember correctly, to do absentee you need to meet one of five or six conditions, one of which is being 65+. Another is that you won’t be in the county on Election Day. This year, people with pre-existing conditions can also request absentee ballots. I didn’t meet any of the absentee conditions.

You can do mail-in voting but your ballot must be notarized. Finding a notary public isn’t always easy; I found that out when I moved here. It’s probably faster than standing in line, but it still concerns me. I just moved here and it took forever just to get registered so I didn’t think I’d have time to get the ballot mailed back in even if I wanted to. I just don’t trust the post office right now.

It’s ok. I’ll knock it out early on voting day. I live in an urban area so I fear that I will have long lines, but it’s also a well to do area so maybe it won’t be so bad. My company has issued a rule that nobody can schedule meetings that day so nobody will feel pressured to decide between waiting in line to vote or skipping the vote in order to get to the meeting.

 

[harley]

I think it’s good that everyone votes no matter who you vote for. Perhaps if anything comes out of this year it’s that people realize voting is a privilege we shouldn’t take for granted.

I voted this year, as I am in a battleground state and have someone I specifically wanted to vote against. However, I'm firmly of the opinion that not voting is a valid choice. A statement that the offerings of the major parties aren't worth wasting your time on. If there actually was a "None of the Above" option I suspect we'd be pushing 100% turnout.

 

[street]

Just to vote to vote, and vote for the party you are affiliate with, even if that person doesn't appeal to you, isn't a good idea IMO.

If all parties have a person that isn't what you want I have no problem not voting.

 

[NW-Bound]

Polls open at 6 am on Election Day here. This state doesn’t have early voting and it is difficult to do absentee or mail in voting. Well, not terribly difficult, but still a pain, like having to get the ballot notarized. And I’m not totally trusting of the mail service these days. So my plan is to get up at 4 am and walk to the polling site as soon as I’m dressed. The polling site is about a five-minute walk.

I have a fear that I may still face a really long line, even at 4:15 am. But I am sure it will be better than the line I’d face at noon. I will drink as little water as possible and pop some Imodium pills so I’ll be able to stand in line for hours if I have to.

And it’s absolutely ridiculous that some areas of the country face 10-hour lines to vote, or even two-hour lines.

WOW! I had to look up where you live: Ohio. Is this the norm for the state?

Here in Phoenix, AZ, I never had to wait more than 1/2 hour. But for the last several elections, we received ballots at home to fill out at our leisure, then drop it in our mail box to be picked up by the US Postal carrier.

I don't remember when we requested the mail-in ballots (despite my oft-claimed "superior memory"), but once we got on the list, we stayed on. Nice!

 

[Ronstar]

I voted in person on Election Day until I retired. In our township road commissioner's garage. I was always one of the first few voters so I didn't have to wait more than a couple of minutes. But sometimes there were voting snafus during the first few minutes on Election Day. Once machines didn't work and we had to resort to paper ballots. Then wait for a pencil.

Now DW and I vote early at the courthouse. I voted a few weeks ago and it was a fast easy process. Waited in line about 5 minutes.

Went into the courthouse again a few days ago for something else, and there were about 10 people in line. The busiest I've ever seen early voting. It seems like almost everyone votes on election day in our area.

 

[harllee]

WOW! I had to look up where you live: Ohio. Is this the norm for the state?

Here in Phoenix, AZ, I never had to wait more than 1/2 hour. But for the last several elections, we received ballots at home to fill out at our leisure, then drop it in our mail box to be picked up by the US Postal carrier.

I don't remember when we requested the mail-in ballots (despite my oft-claimed "superior memory"), but once we got on the list, we stayed on. Nice!

But Ohio has early voting

 

[Dtail]

A lot of these long voting lines are in general not necessary and being caused artificially.
Perhaps it will be better in the near future.

 

[dixonge]

Only thing we touched is electronic signature pad which worker cleaned after each person signed. Blank ballot is printed & then filled out via ink pen. They gave everyone a new cheap pen to use & keep.

Voting in-person feels so much more real to us plus I see the ballot recorded - nothing between me & the vote.

No one was cleaning screens on the voting machines. We sanitize as soon as we get back in the car, same as always. Hey, at least masks were required!

 

[Car-Guy]

No one was cleaning screens on the voting machines. We sanitize as soon as we get back in the car, same as always. Hey, at least masks were required!

I didn't notice if they were cleaning the voting machines when I voted about a week ago... However, masks were required, social distancing was being practiced (sort of) and everybody was given throw away gloves and a q-tip cotton swab... The q-tip was used to vote on the electronic touch screens. Worked well.

 

[Midpack]

No one was cleaning screens on the voting machines. We sanitize as soon as we get back in the car, same as always. Hey, at least masks were required!

NC gives every voter a pen with a stylus, you use the stylus to make selections on screen, so you never touch anything but your personal stylus. Good setup. Briefly touching surfaces isn’t nearly as risky as airborne exposure anyway from what I read, especially with washing or hand san after.

 

[JoeWras]

NC gives every voter a pen with a stylus, you use the stylus to make selections on screen, so you never touch anything but your personal stylus. Good setup. Touching surfaces isn’t nearly as risky as airborne exposure anyway from what I read.

Our NC county gives you a pen to take home, but we fill in bubbles on a paper ballot.

 

[Midpack]

Our NC county gives you a pen to take home, but we fill in bubbles on a paper ballot.

Ours was all touchscreen, then a paper ballot prints, which you take to a scanner and a volunteer shows you how to correctly slide the ballot in, and you see your vote being counted on the screen. We can all verify online as well, accepted and counted - good system IMO.