Post Punk Kitchen Forum

+1

Whatever voting machine becomes the norm, that machine should give out a receipt and receipt that can be easily scanned/fed back in for recounts.

I don't care about states rights, for federal elections, federal laws should apply. Every American should have access to the same machine for the same hours, same rules etc.

I also think anyone playing games with the election should be arrested for treason. Like taking paper ballots home or telling people who aren't native English speakers that democrats don't vote until Wednesday.

yeah, why even bother with electronic voting and all that? If it's so faulty, then...
We just do paper-and-pencil ballots here, stick it in a cardboard ballot box and away you go. Is there some reason to deviate away from that other than to be fancy?

I went to my polling place last general election and this is my 2nd time doing a mail in ballot. I like that I can take time to review the ballot and candidates and fill it out on my own time. Does make me nervous, though.

WA is all vote by mail and as of this morning my county already had 60%+ voter turnout. Considering that doesn't count ballots mailed yesterday or today, or ballots dropped off today, that number seems pretty awesome to me. I hope every damn one of them voted for marriage equality. (I know this didn'thappen.)

Brian and I literally walked 1/4th of a block to vote and had to wait behind one person.

My only complaint is that the guy in charge of the machine was chatting with his friends and didn't give me my forking sticker.

my county sends a paper sample ballot to everyone prior to the vote. (and even if your town doesn't tell you ahead of time, you can always put your zip code into http://votesmart.org/ and all your options will pop up. except maybe for the most insignificant positions. my freeholders weren't in the zip section, and i could only find one of the two green party freeholders searching by name. i'll take a leap of faith and vote for both of them. :-)

it still weirds me out big time that in MA you dont need to show any ID to vote.
how weird is that?
what stopped me from getting up at 7am and gathering up names and addresses of different women in different precincts and going to vote like 10 different times?

i mean for the presidential election it doesnt so much matter in MA but we have a very tight senate race going on.

last time i voted we still had pencils and papers with bubbles to fill in.
we will go tonight after work. the voting place is always run by really grumpy senior citizens. they are kinda mean but maybe it's cause we go so late in the day and they are tired from doing it all day. hopefully they get free meals and snacks and coffee for doing it.

as much as i hate my place o work i have to give them credit today.
they bought everyone pizza and salad for lunch in honor of election day and said anyone who didnt already vote this morning could leave at 4 to make sure they get a chance to vote.

we've never had any lines for voting that were more than 5 mins long so im not anticipating any tonight.

i am definitely completely anxiety ridden and wont be able to sleep until the news 100000% declares Obama winner.
if Romney wins i doubt i will be able to sleep and if i do manage to fall asleep i will have nightmares.

we didn't have any wait either! our polling place has a bunch of voting districts in it, and for some reason, all the other districts always have long lines and ours has no line. ever.

This is a super controversial issue right now. Not everyone has an ID.

isnt there such a thing as a state issued ID though?
i mean i dont know what one has to do to get one but it just strikes me as odd that with voter fraud such a big topic you dont need to prove whom you are.

Getting my mail in ballot was kinda easy-just had to fill out a form online. I still had to battle traffic at the poll place because it's our elementary school and I had a parent teacher conference, jokes on me!



I agree with your skeevy feelings, and as a programmer I do not trust machines.

Here's a quick explanation of the argument against voter ID laws:

http://www.democrats.org/the-real-cost-of-photo-id-laws

I think what she means is that not everyone is legal.

I find it odd too, though, that you don't have to show ID. The first time I voted here I was really taken aback about that.

In Illinois, you don't need ID, either. They already have your name and signature on file (from when you registered) and then they ask you to sign your ballot and two people compare signatures. If there are any discrepancies, they'll take a utility bill as identification--and I think that's really fair. Even if someone gets a hold of someone else's utility bill, it's not like they can keep voting under that same name everywhere else. Also, how likely is it that anyone other than a neighbor/postal carrier could steal a utility bill--and why would they do that when they could so easily be be caught?

As far as getting an ID goes--a trip to the DMV can be a hardship for people who have limited means of transportation and can't afford to take any time off of work. While the DMV is where most people register to vote, there are alternatives, but you can't obtain an ID as easily.

That's not what I meant, actually. Though I really don't like using the terms legal/illegal to talk about human beings but if we're not talking about citizens it's not relevant to voting.

http://www.propublica.org/article/every ... er-id-laws This is also a good resource on the issue.

isnt there such a thing as a state issued ID though?
i mean i dont know what one has to do to get one but it just strikes me as odd that with voter fraud such a big topic you dont need to prove whom you are.[/quote]

Here's a quick explanation of the argument against voter ID laws:

http://www.democrats.org/the-real-cost-of-photo-id-laws[/quote]


hmmm interesting. i honestly didnt know anything about the issue i just always got weirded out i never had to prove whom i was to vote but i definitely see the articles point about not wanting to disenfranchise certain groups of voters like minority and poor.

ACLU also has a good outline on the problems w/voter ID laws. http://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/oppos ... fact-sheet

the bolded line about voting being a fundamental right not a priviledge sort of brings it home!

well i learned a lot today! i honestly never thought about it much past the "hmmm this is weird" point. thanks for filling me in ppk!

yeah I had no idea either- though I have US citizenship I didn't grow up here so not always used to what the laws are in the US, and it's really different from where I used to live.

We don't have to show ID, they ask you to sign your name and then they compare that signature to the signature on your voter registration.

in MA we literally have nothing.
you show up. i think they ask you what precinct you live in and we never remember so we tell them what road and they direct us to the right lady. then we say our address then name and they check us off and give us our ballot.

we fill out the ballot then feed it into a box.
the signature thing sounds good. that means no one has to pay anything to vote but at least there is some sort of check.
at the same time i wonder if in more populated areas if it slows things down??

It's not that easy to get a state issued ID, actually! I didn't have one for 35 years when I was in NYC, because I never had enough ID to get ID. It's kind of twisted. When I moved to Oregon, I was able to get one but I had to jump through a million hoops and do some begging.

In-person voter fraud is a pretty terrible way of swaying an election--my three votes don't have any greater effect on the outcome than one, and now I've risked a felony conviction. If you're going to take that risk, better to engage in voter intimidation and suppression--you know, like a black guy standing next to a polling place.

this sounds like the catch 22 of people not being able to get credit because they have no credit.

i guess i will stop taking my driver's license for granted!!!