MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and
chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.
18 October 2008
We're off to vote early. I'm digging the variety of times to vote - weekends, evenings. Only thing that's missing is the free beer.
I think it starts in Texas on Monday - no evenings, but there is one weekend. I live EV because I can do it at my local library, then pick up some books on my way out.
Arg, i have to renew my license, which i don't want to do, because it was wrongfully suspended and i don't want it on my record blah blah blah and i don't know if this commercial with Jay Z about being able to vote without id just involves filling out a form.
amro our board of elections in this county has 15 early voting places open, some of which are open on the weekends and until 7pm. I don't think it's that way across the whole state, it's different from county to county.
It was a light crowd when we went; they said it was packed earlier, so we must've gotten there after the first rush at 10. We were numbers 2162 and 2163. :) I voted early in 2004 so I could drive people to the polls on election day. Same thing this go round.
I got my ballot yesterday, I've been permeant absentee for ages. Which is great I have to say, while I've voted every election since I turned 18, I used to miss primaries and special elections occasionally. Now I never do. I've found that though I get the ballot a week or two early I almost always end up mailing it in the day before the election. This is the case generally because the week of the election it is a lot easier to find out information on the candidates; the newspapers and such will carry voter guides and analysis. Obviously for the big races this is no big deal, but its very hard to figure out where judges stand, so seeing a few examples of what they've done as lawyers or ruled in the past helps a lot.
I have to do mail-in voting this year, for various scheduling reasons, and it does feel very anticlimactic. I like going into the voting booths at the same time everyone else is; it seems more democracy-in-action or something.
On the other hand, I've always had reasonably flexible jobs and very short lines at my polling places, all of which have been easy walking distance from my various residences, which I know is not everyone's experience.
Right now I'm trying to figure out where to find decent information on the local elections.
Yep, I'm voting by mail this year for the first time. The polls around here have usually been crazy even in normal elections (plus: lousy parking), so I feel like part of my duty is not adding to the burden of the sweet but probably increasingly stressed 80-something poll volunteers.
I wish I could vote early. I know that there will be craziness to deal with when I roll up to the polls (due to the fact that one of the people in my neighborhood hates my father and therefore, hates me and insists on being a biatch) but I'll just roll up anyways. I've been lucky in that I've rarely had to wait more than 10 minutes. As long as they quit moving around where they actually have the polls set up. (It's in a local HS, which has 3 levels that don't really line up straight and is pretty much a crapshoot as to where they've set everything up, even though they always say 'oh it's in the cafeteria' when really, it's in the secondary gym. And there are never any signs. Fuckfaces.)
No early voting here, you vote on November 4th or not at all. Even absentee ballots, you need to swear that you're going to be out of town or give your doctor's name if you're too sick to go to the poll.
Heck, we just got rid of those steam-punk mechanical voting machines two years ago. Progress comes slowly to the keystone state.
Yeah, early voting in Texas starts on monday so I gotta get that done. I have to work at a polling place for the regular election, which is supposed to be really hectic due to a record breaking number of newly registered voters around here.
Also, this cracks me up: one of our state senators, who helped establish early voting in Georgia, is now looking around and saying, "Wait a minute, who let all these minorities in here??!?". Now he thinks early voting is a "mistake."
I got my absentee ballot a few days ago and dropped it off at the ballot box yesterday. I signed up as a permanent absentee voter four years ago when I waited nearly two hours to vote (in the po' part of town, naturally).
This year, my absentee ballot came with a peel-off "I voted!" sticker, which I thought was a nice touch.
S. and I early voted at the mall today. We had touch screen machines that also printed out a paper record for review. We celebrated being DONE with elections and campaigning with lemonade and hot-dog-on-a-stick afterward.
I've been watching in amazement all this talk about early voting and wondering how much that skews the vote. Here, you have to almost sign in blood that you can't possible be within reach of a polling booth on that particular Saturday before they let you do a postal vote. But then, we still vote by marking numbers on a piece of paper with a pencil.
It was very emotional for me, seeing all the people.
I was surprised at how emotional I got when I cast my vote for president. It just popped into my head, "You're doing something that's never been possible before: you're voting for a black man to lead this country." I had a bit of a lump in my throat. Wasn't expecting that.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
