"Well, I tried to take my youngest son Peter and his girl-friend Rachel to vote early today.
We drove to the nearest poll, and were told that the wait was 90 minutes. We drove to another poll, and were told no one knew how long the wait was, but that one hour was the going estimate. The kids bailed. Later, I drove back to the second poll, and voted a straight Democratic ticket. I arrived at 5:30 pm, and finished by 7:10 pm. It took 100 minutes.
Why? Well, voters worried about e-fraud insisted upon paper ballots, and bureaucrats insisted upon machines. Voters had to fill out long paper ballots with ball-point pens, being sure to keep the ink inside the tiny ovals. Then we had to insert our paper ballots into the machines, which checked for obedience to the rigid instructions and either kept the ballot or spat it out. (A few days ago, one of these machines rejected Gary Herling's ballot. ) On Tuesday, other machines will count the votes on these ballots and on the new ballots filled out that day. That's the plan.
The ballot itself was overly complex; the instructions ran to 36 big pages. There was a different ballot for each precinct. While I was in line, the computers that select the proper ballot for a person living at a given address "went down." Some of us had state voting cards with our precinct numbers, and the poll operators were able to find our ballots without the using city's computers. I had my card.
This absurdly dysfunctional system will exasperate many voters, and the length of the lines will prevent many people from voting. Of course, people with miserable jobs will have the least time and energy to vote. Thus, Democrats will be disenfranchised more than Republicans.
How did this happen? Why didn't states adopt simple, old-fashioned paper ballots on which one could write a simple X in pencil over a box to indicate one's choice? I once used such a system in Massachusetts. No wait. No time. Bingo, it's over.
Once the law required both paper and machines, it was only necessary to have a shortage of machines to make the lines so long as to disenfranchise the working poor. The makers of the machines either could have charged so much per machine that cities bought too few.
Or they could have made too few and then accepted payment from the Republican party for the profit they lost by making too few. (This is not unlikely in a campaign in which $3 billion was spent on advertising.)
Of course, it could have been just human stupidity. That's always the most likely reason.
In any event, I now predict that because of these absurdly long lines, the Republicans will hold onto both the House and the Senate."
I will be going to vote later today.
How was your voting experience?
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There is already a thread on the voting. Stickied at the top
There are threads on how the election will be stolen, legally or illegally.
Anandtech Moderator
We drove to the nearest poll, and were told that the wait was 90 minutes. We drove to another poll, and were told no one knew how long the wait was, but that one hour was the going estimate. The kids bailed. Later, I drove back to the second poll, and voted a straight Democratic ticket. I arrived at 5:30 pm, and finished by 7:10 pm. It took 100 minutes.
Why? Well, voters worried about e-fraud insisted upon paper ballots, and bureaucrats insisted upon machines. Voters had to fill out long paper ballots with ball-point pens, being sure to keep the ink inside the tiny ovals. Then we had to insert our paper ballots into the machines, which checked for obedience to the rigid instructions and either kept the ballot or spat it out. (A few days ago, one of these machines rejected Gary Herling's ballot. ) On Tuesday, other machines will count the votes on these ballots and on the new ballots filled out that day. That's the plan.
The ballot itself was overly complex; the instructions ran to 36 big pages. There was a different ballot for each precinct. While I was in line, the computers that select the proper ballot for a person living at a given address "went down." Some of us had state voting cards with our precinct numbers, and the poll operators were able to find our ballots without the using city's computers. I had my card.
This absurdly dysfunctional system will exasperate many voters, and the length of the lines will prevent many people from voting. Of course, people with miserable jobs will have the least time and energy to vote. Thus, Democrats will be disenfranchised more than Republicans.
How did this happen? Why didn't states adopt simple, old-fashioned paper ballots on which one could write a simple X in pencil over a box to indicate one's choice? I once used such a system in Massachusetts. No wait. No time. Bingo, it's over.
Once the law required both paper and machines, it was only necessary to have a shortage of machines to make the lines so long as to disenfranchise the working poor. The makers of the machines either could have charged so much per machine that cities bought too few.
Or they could have made too few and then accepted payment from the Republican party for the profit they lost by making too few. (This is not unlikely in a campaign in which $3 billion was spent on advertising.)
Of course, it could have been just human stupidity. That's always the most likely reason.
In any event, I now predict that because of these absurdly long lines, the Republicans will hold onto both the House and the Senate."
I will be going to vote later today.
How was your voting experience?
------------------------------------------------------------
There is already a thread on the voting. Stickied at the top
There are threads on how the election will be stolen, legally or illegally.
Anandtech Moderator
