Went to my polling place at noon, had my traditional reunion with high school buddy who is a poll watcher this year, catching up on what's been going on in our respective lives (if anybody needs a good criminal attorney, I have her card), and was out by 1215 hrs. No irregularities noted.

Does it mean virtually anybody can just walk in and cast a vote? I think I'm living in a wrong state :)

Your signature has to match what's in the book. More or less. Which is actually a challenge for me.

10 years ago when I registered in my precinct, I had a normal person's signature. All the letters in my name were somewhat neatly formed and identifiable.

Because of my professional need NOT to have a recognizable signature (by practice, commitment warrants are signed sloppily so that patients can't get your name off them and stalk you, I now have a messy, loopy, scrawl in which the initial letters are identifiable, but you'd be hard-pressed to even guess at the rest.

I have actually considered resubmitting a registration form, just to have the signature updated. It's not that big of an issue, and I keep missing the registration deadlines. If I ever move or cross the threshhold of inhibition over changing party affiliation, I'll deal with it.

I wonder exactly what the backup voting procedure is. Do they actually give a paper ballot to people who try to vote and get their votes eaten? Or if the power goes out, do they have paper ballots to allow voting to continue? Or has anyone on whatever committee actually thought of that?

I can't imagine that the machines would have anything other than non-volatile memory, but sometimes my imagination falls short of reality.

Fifteen minutes, including standing in line, along with a heavy slate of judicial retention votes, a MO constitutional amendment and a major local sales tax issue. There were no obvious agitators/excess monitors, and there was no additional (indeed, *any*) security, despite the fact that my polling place is located in the local high school lobby, and students were entering the building while I was there. In fact, my 18 year old stepson voted for the first time today, and we went together. I was kind of touched, actually.

Well, I think we're talking technicalities, here. I AM a legally licensed driver in Colorado's DMV big brother computer banks. Anyhow, whether I got there legally or not, I did go down and vote. They were being very easy going about ID - the woman in front of me used her Sam's Club card plus her business card. However, because I'd sent in my change of address at the last minute, I didn't show up on the loal precinct voter registration list. They told me the Clerk and Recorder's office had been swamped, and was behind updating the voter's registration lists! :eek: They didn't stop me from voting, however. They gave me a provisional, PAPER ballot which I filled out and gave back to them and I guess my vote will be certified. The cool thing is that I got my very own vote tracking number and a phone number that I can call to find out if my vote got counted or not. I taped the numbers to my computer screen so I won't loose them, and you can be sure I'll be checking, especially if the Colorado election is tight.

I also voted "yes" on the state's proposed amendment to split electoral college votes by percentages given each candidate. It's a great first step toward electoral college reform, and I hope that it passes in Colorado and other states pick up on the idea, as well.

Minnesota urban poll report: Van Cleve Park Building- just a bit over an hour wait, but the line had doubled by 11 am. Four years ago I was out in 15 minutes. Several young new registrants- You can register on the day. Over all, the youth of this college neighborhood seemed to be out in great numbers. The usual over 60 year old poll workers neighbors were joined by a big crew of young volunteers- I liked seeing that too.
No irregularities. Legal guy standing by for questions. He weighed in when it was suggested the line wind through a different hallway of the park building- that was given the kibash because of a nearby outside doorway that could not be seen by the officials. It was just cool to be there. Regularly in the 60%s, I bet MN hits a new turnout record.

[/quote]I also voted "yes" on the state's proposed amendment to split electoral college votes by percentages given each candidate. It's a great first step toward electoral college reform, and I hope that it passes in Colorado and other states pick up on the idea, as well.[/quote]

I voted yes on this issue as well. I think it really sucks that a candidate can win the popular vote, but still lose the race. This amendment would help with that, I believe.

I voted this morning and had no problems. Of course, I live in a town with about 8000 or so people, in the middle of the mountains. Paper ballots were used, as they have been in the past. It's interesting to hear about the new electronic voting machines, though.

When I got to the town hall to vote this morning at 8:30 the line was out the door all the way to the parking lot. I stood there for maybe a minute when a guy came out and informed the waiting crowd that there were two lines, the A-O's were to the left of the line everybody was in. I was the only one to move into the left line, walked right up to the front, showed my licence, voted and was back in my car at 8:35! There were no voting gestapo or added security anywhere to be seen but then I didn't expect any either here in Smalltownville, CT.

i was in line at 5:30 AM behind no less than 50 people. when i left at 6:20 AM there was a line of about 150-200 waiting. yikes. no problems whatsoever.

i did have someone from "my union" office call to tell me about all the dirty tricks the republicans were pulling and attempting to give me some BS about my polling place.

they were stumped when i asked which union they were from, because i've belonged to a grand total of Zero unions in arizona.

I was the 8th voter through this morning. I knew all the poll workers so we chatted a bit. No crowd, never is. Pete went this afternoon and was #151.

Voted early this morning ... took about an hour here on the east coast of FL....more working class people than I imagined...thought it would be all the blue hairs but I guess they all voted early.

So far it looks like FL might not be the laughing stock of the country on this election as it is not too close yet (again, so far).....

404, where in CT are you? We just moved from Manchester...

FD

Small world FD, I was born and raised in Manchester. I live in Woodstock now, my parents are taking off to Florida tomorrow for their winter home (read: trailer) in Winter Haven. They were just waiting to vote here before they left.

I was number #773 at my polling place this afternoon. I waited 1.5 hours, and had a nice chat with Reps and Dems regarding the Electoral College. We may have disagreed on whom to vote for, but we were all in agreement that the Electoral College does need to have some work done on it. (I'm also for the splitting of EC votes in relation to the percentate of popular vote for each candidate)

I was suprised however, that in my precinct, we used paper ballots. Prior to today, I'd only voted with mechanical booths. The things you find out when you move :)