I Voted. Did you?*

[johno]

20080205-140521-v705a
Originally uploaded by JohnO.

I was number 67 in to the machine at my polling place**, shortly after noon.

I commented how disgusted I was at such a low number.

The Precinct Captain responded that our area has lots and lots of mail in ballots.

Edit to add:

* If you are in the US in a state holding primaries today. Actually in California there are 7 state props and my county has 2 local props on the ballat, so it's not just primaries to vote on.

** My county went back to paper going into OCR machines. One per precinct station. No clue how many folks are in my precinct.

Comments

[iamradar.livejournal.com]

I voted too! But I lost my sticker. :-(

[sibylle]

How big are precincts, usually? How many voters to a precinct?

The one I voted in when still in Mannheim had ~600 voters in total in it, I think, so 67 around noon (depending on number of booths, of course) would have been an ok number there, I think.

And, I'd totally vote, but I can't. Hmm, it'd be interesting if interested foreigners could vote somewhere, on a website or something, just for fun - and to see which country is leaning which way... . Hmm.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

No. :-)

But then, our state primary isn't until the 19th (and I have an absentee ballot for it already) and the Dems in my state don't use the primary results at all for determining delegates--it's all done at the caucuses, which are this weekend.

[jbriggs.livejournal.com]

I always vote. I'm permanent mail-ballot now since I don't trust the machines, but I drop the ballot off at the polling place anyway.

[elizabear.livejournal.com]

I was #176 at 10am in my precinct.

[knaveofhearts.livejournal.com]

There was no line, and I was 147. The poll worker said most folks come after work.

[usqueba.livejournal.com]

I registered to vote the week after my 18th birthday. I think I've only missed 3 elections of any sort since then.

- Sportin' my "I Voted" sticker.

[oddharmonic.livejournal.com]

I will, but my state's primary not until 4 March.

Have I posted a picture of our local county's "I voted" sticker? It says "I made freedom count in Denton County". (:

[johno.livejournal.com]

Flashing on the movie "Shock Treatment" set in Denton.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

I voted at shortly after eight a.m., and had to wait to get into the parking places in a queue because of the crowd. I was delighted!

[eac.livejournal.com]

I was like 54, I think.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

I was #18, I think, at ~7:20am.

[koshka-the-cat.livejournal.com]

I didn't. But then, we had our caucuses on the 19th :)

One election there were so few people voting in our precinct that we had to do absentee ballots. They wouldn't even open a polling place for us! 52 people came to our caucus.

[gorgeousgary]

I voted earlier this week. Even though Maryland's primary is the 12th, I will be several hundred miles away on business travel that day. So I did the absentee thing.

[karisu-sama.livejournal.com]

We voted by mail a week or so ago. :)

[ramblingmom.livejournal.com]

BTDTGTS (been there, done that, got the sticker)

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

I voted, but didn't think to ask what number I was. There were no others using the booths, but a couple of people dropped off the mail-in ballots while I was there. One had extras (in CA you can be an "authorized person" to drop off ballots of close relatives and/or people living at the same address.)

I believe that my county has over 50% of the people on "Permanent Ballot-By-Mail" status, and I'm considering it myself. For a primary (which typically has low in-person turnout), I think the mail-in ballots boost participation.
For myself, I miss an election about once per decade (sudden illness or trip with no time to arrange absentee ballot, that sort of thing).

I do not, however, go out of my way to encourage people to vote just to get the numbers high. The way I see it, if people aren't going to vote without encouragement they probably aren't going to be informed on the issues/candidates. Encouraging votes by people who know almost nothing about the issues is not a particularly good idea. It increase party-line votes, not informed choices.

If only 33% of the registered voters bother to vote, that means I effectively have 3 votes - and they are all informed votes (and I vote Independent). I may not make the best choice every time, but I try. So I think those are 3 quality votes. If those other 2 people can be browbeat into voting (when they otherwise wouldn't) we get 1 informed vote and (usually) 2 party-line votes. I don't really see the benefit.

If they would pay attention and study the issues and the candidates then sure, let's encourage participation. But otherwise, no.

[idea-fairy.livejournal.com]

I voted by mail a week or so ago.

I recall a time when absentee ballots were just for people who couldn't make it to the polls, but now Santa Clara County (California) is encouraging people to vote by mail.

So it looks like the officials here would prefer voters to vote, in order of preference: (1) by mail, (2) electronically at the polls, (3) by paper ballot at the polls.

One grump: Even though I voted last week, political ads kept coming. One I found especially annoying was for that Indian gaming thing: A list of assertions, each preceded by the word FACT, sort of like a bulleted list. I didn't keep count, but I think I heard it at least three or four times on my car radio on the way to and from today's lunch get-together.

As for estimating the turnout, back when I was voting at the polling place, they would post a list of registered voters by the door. If you wanted to know how many voters were in a precinct, you could count the names on the list. You could also see which parties your neighbors were registered for.

I seem to recall seeing names of people who had voted crossed off (or highlighted or whatever) on that list. That wasn't done in real time, but they would update it several times over the course of the day. But that was many elections ago, so I don't know if it's still done that way today.

[lampblack.livejournal.com]

That does seem low. Our state was an early primary state, and I was #23 at 9:00 am. Which seemed horrible to me as well.

[bug-girlx.livejournal.com]

I voted for Obama.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Absentee!

[targeter.livejournal.com]

Voted absentee in January.

We voted last week, by mail

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, procrastination saved us from voting for a non-existent candidate (i.e. Edwards)

more on the CA voting

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen on the news, we're going to have the highest turnout for a primary in 28 years, i.e. since 1980. Roughly 56%. Those empty polling places are the result of more and more people signing up for Ballot By Mail (which the county actively encourages).

In spite of that, some places ran out of ballots. This was due to the much larger than usual crossover voting. In CA, parties can decide to let people who don't register for ANY party vote in their primary. The Republicans do not, but the Democrats (and American Independents) do. Apparently a LOT of "Declines to state" people decided they wanted to vote in the Democratic primary this year. Some places went to local Copy houses to make temporary ballots, or if people had brought their sample ballots (like they are supposed to) they could use those. And there was also some confusion about whether the people at the polling place were supposed to OFFER the choice of 3 ballots or not. The Voter Information packet I got said that the voter had to REQUEST to vote in the Democrat or American Independent primaries. Some places were automatically offering each "declines to state" voter a choice of 3, others just handed out the "only initiatives" ballot =unless= the voter specifically asked for a different one.

And the news reported that one polling place closed about 4 hours early - no explanation given - and they had to send new people down there to re-open it.

So a couple of weak points in training the polling place volunteers.