Early voting...

maestrowork · Nov 2, 2008

So what's the deal with it? I don't really understand the allure of early voting, and it seems like it could be a recipe of confusion and chaos and logistic nightmares. Not to mention some places are reporting 5-10 hours lines -- WTF? If I were voting early, I'd be doing it for convenience and not be in line for 10 hours. There's something called absentee ballots, you know?

I don't understand.

kristie911 · Nov 2, 2008

I'd never even heard of early voting. I suppose where I live there would be no point in it.

blacbird · Nov 2, 2008

I don't think anybody anticipated some of the waiting times that have been involved in some places. I voted early, and it took about an hour. It was on Saturday, and many people I talked to in line mainly were there because they had work conflicts that made voting on Tuesday awkward if not impossible. Which says something about our bizarre habit of insisting on Tuesday as a voting day. But I virtually guarantee that lines will be equally bad if not worse on Tuesday. And you can bet your second-best cat that there will be reports of places running out of ballots, machines malfunctioning, etc.

caw

maestrowork · Nov 2, 2008

In some counties here they're expecting ballot shortage. Some places are getting ready with extra clipboards.

I never had any problems on Election Day (usually got in an out without 10 minutes -- because I usually went at like 2 PM). The lines were a bit longer in 2004 but still, I was able to do it in less than 30 minutes, and I live in a suburb of a major city.

blacbird · Nov 2, 2008

maestrowork said:
In some counties here they're expecting ballot shortage. Some places are getting ready with extra clipboards.

I never had any problems on Election Day (usually got in an out without 10 minutes -- because I usually went at like 2 PM). The lines were a bit longer in 2004 but still, I was able to do it in less than 30 minutes, and I live in a suburb of a major city.

This ain't gonna be like 2004, mesuspects. And the majority of voters don't have the option of voting at 2PM, mealsosuspects.

caw

maestrowork · Nov 2, 2008

I think they should give a half day/full day off on Election Day.

If I were President, I would pronounce Election Day a national holiday! Vote Ray for President!

blacbird · Nov 2, 2008

maestrowork said:
I think they should give a half day/full day off on Election Day.

If I were President, I would pronounce Election Day a national holiday! Vote Ray for President!

What about the free beer? You want my vote, you gonna hafta work for it.

caw

maestrowork · Nov 2, 2008

How about wine coolers, you freak.

mscelina · Nov 2, 2008

Wine coolers???

Oh, Ray. And I thought so highly of you too...

blacbird · Nov 2, 2008

maestrowork said:
How about wine coolers, you freak.

You probably eat quiche, too, dontcha?

caw

wordmonkey · Nov 2, 2008

I seem to recall this came to be something deemed important with the whole Diebold "no we can't give you a receipt for your vote because that technology only works on our ATM machines and woud be impossible to reproduce on our voting machines" fun and games.

Many places had the contingency for early voting, but it was all set-up to be old-school. So people decided this was the best way to have a paper-trail of their vote.

Claudia Gray · Nov 2, 2008

I agree that it would be better off to have a free day on election day. That said, there can be plenty of reasons to vote early besides convenience. I think I posted this somewhere before, but last year at this time, I was pretty seriously ill. I knew I was going to have surgery in mid-November but also knew my condition could change at any time and require immediate surgery. Were I in that situation this year instead of last year, I'd certainly have arranged for early voting, just to make sure I could do it. Yeah, that's an extreme case, but I can see that plenty of others might need a contingency plan to be sure to vote more than simply an easier way to do it.

cethklein · Nov 2, 2008

ClaudiaGray said:
I agree that it would be better off to have a free day on election day. That said, there can be plenty of reasons to vote early besides convenience. I think I posted this somewhere before, but last year at this time, I was pretty seriously ill. I knew I was going to have surgery in mid-November but also knew my condition could change at any time and require immediate surgery. Were I in that situation this year instead of last year, I'd certainly have arranged for early voting, just to make sure I could do it. Yeah, that's an extreme case, but I can see that plenty of others might need a contingency plan to be sure to vote more than simply an easier way to do it.

Agreed. I have never understood why we don't get the day off to vote. Hell, many people get Columbus Day as a holiday. Seriously..COLUMBUS DAY, yet we don't get Election Day off?

mscelina · Nov 2, 2008

I did see a commercial yesterday with a bunch of CEOs urging businesses to give their employees a free hour to go vote on Tuesday. It stuck in my mind because I was sort of surprised that no one had proposed that before.

ChaosTitan · Nov 2, 2008

cethklein said:
Agreed. I have never understood why we don't get the day off to vote. Hell, many people get Columbus Day as a holiday. Seriously..COLUMBUS DAY, yet we don't get Election Day off?

So who gets the day off? How do you decide? Do all retail businesses, restaurants, gas stations and fast food franchises close, too, so those employees have the benefit of a day off to vote?

blacbird · Nov 2, 2008

ChaosTitan said:
So who gets the day off? How do you decide? Do all retail businesses, restaurants, gas stations and fast food franchises close, too, so those employees have the benefit of a day off to vote?

And now we completely understand the need for early voting, do we not?

caw

ChaosTitan · Nov 2, 2008

blacbird said:
And now we completely understand the need for early voting, do we not?

caw

Yep. I work a retail job, 9-5 on Tuesday. I had no idea early voting was an option.

So I'm scratching my head, trying to decide if I want to get up at the crack of dawn and vote before work, or stand in a line after being on my feet for nine hours and vote after work.

ABekah · Nov 2, 2008

I'm originally from TX, and I've always taken advantage of early voting. You never know if you'll have an unexpected emergency on Election Day, and be unable to vote.

Currently I live in Maryland and am dreading the long lines on Tuesday. I'll be there, waiting as long as it takes. Hopefully the referendum on the ballot to allow early voting in the future will pass.

blacbird · Nov 2, 2008

ABekah said:
Hopefully the referendum on the ballot to allow early voting in the future will pass.

So you don't get to vote early on the issue of early voting?

caw

SHBueche · Nov 2, 2008

I'm in Texas too, and took advantage of early voting, my only concern was that I might forget and try to vote on election day ... but you never know, they might let me

.

cethklein · Nov 2, 2008

ChaosTitan said:
So who gets the day off? How do you decide? Do all retail businesses, restaurants, gas stations and fast food franchises close, too, so those employees have the benefit of a day off to vote?

Just make it a government holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Other businesses can choose to follow suit.

whistlelock · Nov 2, 2008

maestrowork said:
How about wine coolers, you freak.

Oh, gonna have to neg rep point you on that one. seriously. :tongue

whistlelock · Nov 2, 2008

I'm in Texas too, and I took advantage of Voting Month (since here it starts on Oct. 4th).

Normally it's a 10 minutes process with my wife and I talking to the vote station tenders for 7 of those minutes. This year we stood in line for almost 2 hours before we got to the ballot machines. And, the wait wasn't due to only a few machines, they had 15 or so of them working at full capacity. There were that many people.

I saw on our local News that Travis, Hays, and Williamson counties already had 50% voter turnout with early voting. I'm hoping that on election day we can get up to the mid-eighties.

Bravo · Nov 2, 2008

did it a couple weeks ago, absolutely great feeling.

no lines no hassle, just a couple minutes of alone time with the machine.

lots of fun.

Karen Duvall · Nov 2, 2008

We mail in our ballots. I thought that option was nationwide, but apparently not.

Early voting...

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