Get out and vote

I think our polls are 7a-7p but I voted a week ago. The one thing that bothered me (well, besides the obvious national crapstorm) was how many uncontested races there were on the local scale. Well over 50 % of the ballots were unopposed, including at least one congressional seat. I have a strict personal policy about not voting at all when a position is uncontested. If I'm not given a choice, I certainly won't vote FOR the person. It won't matter anyway.

Living in Georgia, it's obviously a stronghold for one party, but I was surprised and disappointed at least one of the other parties didn't even bother to get someone on the ticket. I mean, school board or county clerk, okay, fine, whatever, but congresional?

The uncontested ballots are annoying me as well. Maybe I need to put my money where my mouth is.

EvanB wrote:

dculberson wrote:

stuart in mn wrote: We had early voting for the first time in Minnesota so I did it a couple days ago, figuring I'd beat the rush. No such luck, the line was a mile long and it took an hour. If that's any sign, voter turnout is going to be really heavy.

Here in Ohio (well, my polling location) there were long lines for early voting and no line at all at 8:30am voting day.

I got to my polling location at 7am hoping the college students would still be asleep (it is just north of campus) but it still took me 50 minutes to get through the line.

I was surprised by the line at 6:30 at my polling location. Took about 45min which isn't terrible I guess.

Finished voting about 1/2 hour ago. Long line, as we happened to go during the nominal lunch hour. But it went quick enough.

Just over 900 in my ward when I got my ballot.

I voted early a couple of weeks ago. There was no line at all; I was in and out in 5 minutes. I'll definitely being doing that again for the next election. (That is, unless Trump wins and declares himself president for life and cancels all future elections.)

I love it when a plan comes together.

I figured the office crowd would vote early, 7am to 9am; the working stiffs would vote between 3pm and 5pm; the moms would vote between 9am and 12; and the lazy would vote between 5pm and 7pm. So, around 2pm should be perfect.

And it was.

Voted. Time spent, less than 10 minutes. By the time I showed my ID and signed in, there was one person in front of me and 6 machines.

I heard some bosses reveal themselves to be petty tyrants when employees request to use statutorily mandated paid time off to vote, and then somehow think its appropriate to ask afterwards, "did you vote?".

In reply to ultraclyde:

There were four candidates on my ballot that were each running as the democratic, republican, conservative, working family, and something else candidate. They really couldn't have dug up any opponents?

Had some problems at work which means we got done early. So I just got back from voting. Took about ten minutes, no waiting.

Wall-e wrote: In reply to ultraclyde: There were four candidates on my ballot that were each running as the democratic, republican, conservative, working family, and something else candidate. They really couldn't have dug up any opponents?

All of the seven or so people running unopposed in our local races were all labeled only one party. Weird that they had them as different parties.

Wall-e wrote: In reply to ultraclyde: There were four candidates on my ballot that were each running as the democratic, republican, conservative, working family, and something else candidate. They really couldn't have dug up any opponents?

They???!??!?!

Come on, you mean US. Don't count on others to choose who you get to vote for, get out and do something.

We are supposed to be an active and participatory government. This isn't THEM, it's US.

Well..Interesting lead. Not surprised about Indiana though.

In reply to alfadriver:

A few of them were judges. I doubt they will let me walk in and apply.

Edit: I am more surprised that the same person would run in multiple parties.

In reply to Grtechguy: On behalf of humanity I apologize for my state. Sigh

In addition to her great many other faults I just found out that my ex and her husband voted orange. Given her round heeled tendencies being grabbed by the __ sounds like something she'd welcome.

Berk it, I need another beer.

need to take a break from continuously hitting refresh.

Our polls are open 7am-7pm. SWMBO was in line at 6:40am and finished voting at 8:20am. I got in line at 4:30pm and was done in less than 10 minutes.

There were 3 people ahead of me to sign in when I got in line and 10 machines. It is less efficient than it could be. We had 3 people checking in potential voters for 10 voting machines. My drivers license has a QR code on it and a magnetic strip. Why is some elderly person with poor vision trying to read my name (without their reading glasses) and one finger hunt & peck to type it into a computer?

But this was a significant improvement over 2012. In 2012, I got in line at 3:55pm and finished voting around 9:30pm. At that election, my polling place served double the registered voters it now has and there were only 4 machines (of which zero or one was working most of the day). The situation did not satisfy legal requirements for number of registered voters per machine and this happened at somewhere like 10-15 polling stations in the county. Several hundred voting machines remained in the warehouse and a significant number of the ones deployed had functionality problems. The county employee in charge of that fiasco was fired and the system revamped.

We did not have a single local race that was contested. The only 3 contested positions were President, US Senate, and US House of Representative. Every other race was uncontested. Gerrymandering has gotten out of control.

Well, I voted almost 3 weeks ago now. The polling place is on my running route so I just waited till I saw no line and placed my ballot really quick and finished my run. I'm sure the election officials loved me.

In reply to bmw88rider:

Mine was in a gym, and it was rank in there. Really bad.

I went around 6 tonight and waited for maybe 5-10 minutes at most. Apparently last names in my district are very heavily skewed towards the first half of the alphabet, as we A-L named folks waited while those entitled M-Z bastards walked right up.

Surprised how close this thing is right now.

Hit to poll at 6pm, there were about a dozen "booths" and only one open, but only 2 other peole ahead of me. Quick in and out, my ballot was in the high 900's.

Vote Quimby!

Comstock, your polling place describes this round of politics accurately.

Trump wins the electoral college.

Clinton wins the popular vote.

Sigh

iceracer wrote: Trump wins the electoral college. Clinton wins the popular vote. Sigh

I was gonna make a remark about the state of it all, but am refraining from floundering this.

This year NC has provided a good example of how every vote can count. In the Governors race, there's only a 5000 vote difference. Winner won't be declared until provisional ballots are counted in a few days.