Well, to be fair, Texas votes on the day that USED to be Super Tuesday - March 4th - until all those unpatriotic states moved their elections up. :) So I think the confusion is quite understandable.

Totally understandable. There's so much coverage, it's reasonable to assume that everyone is voting today.

There's so much coverage, it's reasonable to assume that everyone is voting today.

I can't tell whether you're being facetious. I hope you are.

Also, it says "super" right there in the name -- can you really blame us Texans for thinking it must involve us somehow?

Furthermore, the state of Texas, in their magnificence and wisdom, sees fit NOT to send out any sort of voter information, such as voting guides, by mail or even postcards indicating when and where citizens should vote. Such information, they often indicate, can be found in the sunday paper (on or after a certain date, I image), or by *gasp* calling the Election Board.

So it seems to me like the Election Board is complaining about doing their job...

(Here in Little Rock, our newspaper printed a bunch of wrong information about early voting times and locations. Interestingly, the same thing happened last year.)

I'm not being facetious dersins. (Yet.) There's a damn lot of hype, and not everyone is as well-informed as you. (There it was.)

Seriously, though, to assume that everyone is voting today isn't reasonable at all. IN fact, it displays a pretty fundamental misunderstanding our political system.

I'm not saying this is something unique to Texans-- not by a longshot.

It does, however, help to explain why so many voters, Texans or otherwise, end up voting for totally unqualified buffoons: they have no idea what they're doing.

I'm not saying this is something unique to Texans-- not by a longshot.

Then you should maybe have come up with a different title for your post. That's what rubbed the wrong way.

Of course, of course, people should have a deeper understanding of our political system. But then again, voter turnout in primaries is usually really low, and they're more complicated than the actual presidential election. So, no, I don't think it's unreasonable for someone who watches those abominable 24-hour-cable-news networks to be operating under Primary overload and to assume that today's The Primary.

I've already given two reasons why it's rather reasonable that voters (who perhaps lack regular access to the Internet) would be confused about whether or not they are voting today.

1) Texas has traditionally voted on Super Tuesday.
2) There is no free information available on when Texans vote, or where their polling center is located.

It's not a "fundamental misunderstanding of the political system," it's a deliberate attempt by the state of Texas to either save money or disenfranchise voters. Probably both.

Furthermore, there are more than 1 million people currently living in Bexar County. 1000 people is a relative drop in the bucket.

I'm not saying this is something unique to Texans-- not by a longshot.

Right, because the "ah, Texans" little quip wasn't trying to call Texans stupid hicks, then?

Really, can you keep your ignorant attitude on Metafilter? I see enough of stuff over there without getting it here too.

I bet this happened a lot today. But the KSAT story got picked up because of the LOLTEXANS factor.

As muddgirl says, Texas seems to almost go out of its way to not educate voters on when and where elections take place. I've lived in three other states and I don't want to say conspiracy or anything but you really want to vote to be able to vote in this state. When I lived in California I remember getting a sample ballot that included my poling location. In Texas you get a voter registration card that has your precinct on it but no instructions as to where that is (and it seems to change every election). For non-federal elections the only way I know it is election time is during early voting when I see the "HERE VOTE AQUI" signs in front of the Randals.

I'm pretty politically aware and knew that today wasn't election day, but I don't know when the primaries are. I'll vote during early voting whenerver I see the septuagenarians and the voting machines in between the Starbucks and the produce department of the grocery store.
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As an Austinite, we can laugh and say LOLSANANTONIANS about this though.

AND ANOTHER THING...

here's the real voting going on in Texas this week.

Early voting is from Fed. 19-29, birdherder.

Feb. 19-29. Primaries are on March 4th.

My Mom's boss went to the school where she votes today. She wondered why there weren't any flags out front.

(We vote Feb. 19.)

Our county clerk puts out a two-full-newspaper-page sample ballot the weekend before the election, so before the actual voting, people get plenty of information if they receive the paper.

Really, can you keep your ignorant attitude on Metafilter?

Man, I had no idea Texans were such delicate flowers. Now I know what the yellow rose is, I guess. So sorry I offended all of you.

Man, I had no idea Texans were such delicate flowers.

Whatever, dude. You knew what you were doing when you made this post, so forgive me if I don't believe your lame faux apology. Come on, you wanted to rail against Texans, why stop now?

At this point, I'm not railing at Texans, I'm just railing at you for turning into a total whiny baby about this. Seriously, "dude."

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and believe that you haven't seen all of the anti-Texas shit that's been on metafilter in the past, and that you just posted this because it was a funny example of uninformed voters and nothing more.

Just so you know, there's been a prevalent attitude on mefi of "look at what ignorant fuckheads Texans are" and seeing this post looked to me as carrying it over here just for the hell of it. My apologies if I was reading too much into it, this kind of this just really sets me off.

Yeah, dersins, please keep this crap out of MetaChat.

keep this crap out of MetaChat

Strikes me that I'm not the one being, y'know, hostile here.

I posted a link to an article about voters doing something stupid.

These voters were in Texas.

I noted that fact in the title of the post.

I didn't know there was some huge fucking epic history of people being forced to ride into battle to defend the poor besmirched honor of the state of Texas every time the subject comes up, so I didn't realize I was poking at a sore spot.

If I had, though, I don't think that would have changed my post.

After all, if the article (which I found linked on the front page of CNN-- it's not like I wa out searching for a Texas "gotcha" or something) had been about voters from New Jersey, or Florida, or Oregon or wherever, I would have noted that, too. Probably with a very similar title, too.

("Ah, New Yorkers..." or "Ah, Californians..." would have been excellent candidates for a post title had the article been, you know, about New Yorkers or Californians. It wasn't. It was about Texans.)

You people need to chill the fuck out and not act like someone's trying to shoot your mother in the face every time the state of Texas is mentioned in a negative context. Jesus fuck.

If one was engaged in critical thinking, one could ask, "Why is CNN.com interested in the fact that 0.02% of Bexar County's voting population is confused about the date of their primary?"

If one was engaged in critical thinking

An excellent point. My apologies for engaging in an insufficiently rigorous analysis of the semiotics of funny news articles.

I'm not trying to attack you, dersins. I'm trying to turn this conversation away from "dersins sucks cause he hates texans" to "CNN sucks cause they post stupid articles"

But if you don't want my help, then I'll fuck off.

I think the real issue here is that Texans are, for all their flaws, a lot smarter than these Floridians, who called the Supervisor of Elections asking where to vote on Super Tuesday, despite the fact that their primary happened back in January.

Sorry. Having just been told to fuck off by multiple people, I sort of assumed that I was being told to fuck off again. My bad.

You make a good point, but I think that article could have been made CNN regardless of the state it was about:

Bexar County has 890,000 registered voters .

The last time there was a Presidential primary, voter turnout there was 8.47%.

Even assuming a turnout of twice that (let's say 17%, for easier math math) that's a theoretical pool of 151,300 likely voters.

"Over 1000" of those 151,300 likely voters is about .6% of them. That may not sound like much, but it's statistically significant.

It gets even more statistically significant when you think about it like this: that's not the number of people who were confused, it's the number of people who were so confused and so interested that they actually went to the trouble of looking up the phone number of the Elections Department and then calling them. When it comes to contacting companies and government agencies, each caller or letter writer is generally representative of many more who didn't make the effort for whatever reason.

Now, you're probably correct when you lay the blame at the feet of the election board for "see[ing] fit NOT to send out any sort of voter information, such as voting guides, by mail or even postcards indicating when and where citizens should vote."

It does sound like, if not a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise, at the very least an unwillingness to provide their citizens with the information they need to vote.

But I would think this would be news regardless of where it's happening.

Wow, there were a lot of editing errors in that comment. Pretend "could have been made CNN" (in the second graf) reads "would have made CNN." Also pretend that I only wrote "math" once in the fifth graf.

West coast hipster makes fun of fly-over country. Pictures at 11.

Where did that happen, pieisexactlythree? Other than in your imagination, I mean.

This thread is just... gross.

You're wrong about where the hostility is coming from, dersins. Or at least about where it originated. And the continued insults don't help your case any. But you don't seem to be interested in case-helping as you seem to be determined to dig your heels in and come off as, what? Edgy? Prickly? Superior? Whatever.

You can have it. You win. Texans LOLOLOLOLOL are stoopid and they get real defensive when the message isn't "GOD BLESS TEXAS" and they whine and stuff and LOLOLOL idiots it comes off real bad. But Dersins is smart and sharp and he meant exactly what he said and you interpreted it wrong so you're an even bigger idiot than you were before LOLOLOLOL!!!

This thread is just... gross.

Agreed.

You're wrong about where the hostility is coming from, dersins.

"Really, can you keep your ignorant attitude on Metafilter?"

Reading through the thread, that's the first hostile thing in here. And it's directed at me. And I'm the one bringing hostility into this?

But you don't seem to be interested in case-helping as you seem to be determined to dig your heels in

Did you even READ my last comment on the subject? It's pretty clear pie didn't. And I'm the one digging in his heels?

I call bullshit.

Texans LOLOLOLOLOL are stoopid and they get real defensive

I must have missed the part where I called you stupid. Defensive, yes. This thread is ample evidence of that.

I'm done with this subject now. Feel free to continue with the sarcastic name-calling, though. It's very becoming.