U.S. Election Day In Progress: What's Been Your Experience? 821
Today is Election Day in the U.S., and polls are open even in Hawaii now. The current Slashdot poll gives a snapshot of how many readers have voted or plan to vote; more rigorous and wide-based polls are easy to find. If you're taking part in today's election, what have you found? Did you or will you vote electronically, or on paper? How long did you wait to vote? Did you vote weeks ago by mail? How much time did you put into making your choices? It would be helpful if in comments you start the subject of your post with your 2-letter state abbreviation, like this: "TX - About to go get in line to push some buttons."
UK - Not pressing any buttons today... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:GA- not allowed to vote due to id problems (Score:5, Insightful)
"I said oh well, not like voting matters anyhow due to electoral college bullshit and went home"
I'm so glad you didn't vote. Uneducated people shouldn't vote.
Re:DC - won't vote, doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
maybe get Gary Johnson above 5%? It will change the national discourse even if you don't agree with him 100%.
Re:GA- not allowed to vote due to id problems (Score:5, Insightful)
"I said oh well, not like voting matters anyhow due to electoral college bullshit and went home"
I'm so glad you didn't vote. Uneducated people shouldn't vote.
How is that any different then educated people not voting?
Re:My experience... (Score:5, Insightful)
Waited 15 minutes in line and then voted electronically on a diebold machine with no apparent problems.
That's the biggest issue with those machines: Any problems with them aren't apparent.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not voting, i'm not crazy. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd vote, but then I heard that a definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different outcome each time.
Re:KY - Not voting (Score:5, Insightful)
President isn't the only position, local, state and congressional positions matter just as much.
Get your ass out and vote for the sake of your country!
Re:DC - won't vote, doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't be bothered to look up referendums and local races, so I can't be bothered to do it for you, but often there's school funding bonds and school boards and stuff like that to vote for where you might have an impact even if, as you say, the presidential portion of the ballot is, for your location, utterly meaningless.
If it is meaningless, I think you should vote Johnson like I'm going to. You've obviously got nothing to lose. I respect the decision, although disagree, with a friend who's voting for the Green Party candidate. Anybody's better than the D's and the R's so any vote for someone other than D or R is always good vote.
Re:i voted 3 times already (Score:4, Insightful)
"Vote early . . . vote often!"
MD - Gary Johnson (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hopless here, but I'm voting for Gary Johnson anyway. I just want to see a black mark on the paper, a margin that says "OBAMA WINS!!" with barely over a third of the nation behind him. Maybe one day we'll see stats that make people think: maybe these two assholes aren't our only option. Maybe one day we'll stop worshipping the constitution, burn it, and become 50 separate countries with our own currency and economic robustness, and let Europe take over the one-big-currency-one-big-problem market. Maybe we'll burn it and rewrite it with a parliament so if 10% of us vote for Libertarians or Greens or Nazis then we have to fill in 10% of the Senate and House with Libertarians or Greens or Nazis. Maybe we can get a pluralist presidency where if you don't have 50% we eliminate all until the combined votes bring the lowest to above the second place, and then try again until it's 1 on 1.
Our constitution dictates a system of government which creates a system by which we believe we only have two options (look how old the Republicans and Democrats are). The only way is to rewrite it. Then the people can chose.
Re:UK - Not pressing any buttons today... (Score:5, Insightful)
live with him for 4x more years ruining your country.
LOL I'm not voting for the guy, but the R party really shot themselves in their foot by spending 4.5 years of every village idiot emailing and FB and G+ stuff about, sure, the kenyan marxist muslim hasn't grabbed our guns and sent in the UN troops YET, but I heard next week he's gonna start... and 200 odd weeks of the crying wolf stuff absolutely makes them a laughingstock. I suspect if "O" wins we'll have to suffer thru another 200 weeks of weekly emails about how "O" is gonna open up the UN concentration camps for gun owners starting "next week".
He's got issues... He's just a lapdog of the 1% banking elite, they say "jump, O" and he says "how high, master?". His R opponent is even worse being a corrupt 1%er himself. So, the devil's tame quisling lapdog, or the devil himself? I'll vote Johnson instead.
Re:UK - Not pressing any buttons today... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or it means he threw it away because it has been useless for most of the last seven years.
Useless, other than as ID to allow him to vote. Free country, people get to decide what's important to them for many things, and keeping an expired driver's license around to be able to vote is one of those things.
Voted a week ago (Score:4, Insightful)
using Oregon's mail in ballots.
Every state should do it this way.
Research everyone I could. Even looked through church rooster to see if any people running for board comes up from a church known for shoving their stupid into the government
As someone who has studied corporate history, and economic history, the presidential vote as easy. Obama.
Re:UK - Not pressing any buttons today... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Obama "ruined" the US. All by himself. Just like magic.
Re:WI: voted. (Score:4, Insightful)
"I don't approve of that other than for extraordinary circumstances where a voter cannot possibly get to the polling place."
becasue..why? you don't want more people to vote?
"I made my decision long ago."
I'm sure you did.
MN-Presidential wasn't why I voted (Score:4, Insightful)
Went and registered and voted in about 20 minutes. New to the area so had to bring a utility bill. Actually wasn't really concerned about the presidential elections as voting against a stupid amendment [ballotpedia.org] that was on the ballot. Minnesota is most likely going Obama but the votes on that amendment are too close to ignore. I have friends and family that are homosexual and I damn sure am not gonna sit on the couch while people try to take their rights away. Granted the stupid law already does that (and I voted against those jerks too) but I do not want it made that much more difficult to get it repealed by making it an amendment.
Re:GA- not allowed to vote due to id problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Every citizen has the right to vote, but it carries the responsibility of educating yourself on the candidates/propositions. Voting without knowing what you're voting for is foolish. At best it merely deflates the value of an informed voter (random selection) and at worst you can unwittingly sway an election against your interests (likely since many ballot propositions are deceivingly worded).
Recommending that others should vote, just to "exercise their right" isn't a noble cause and doesn't help produce a more representative government. Instead, get people to learn what's on the ballot and why they should vote, preferably with minimal personal bias.
Re:SC - 1 1/2 hour wait. not too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
One and a half hour?!? In a developed country, that has had democracy for more than two hundred years?
How is this even remotely acceptable in what is supposedly a bastion of democracy?
Re:GA- not allowed to vote due to id problems (Score:2, Insightful)
Having no faith in the system has nothing to do with being educated or not.
Re:WI: voted. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wrote:"I don't approve of that other than for extraordinary circumstances where a voter cannot possibly get to the polling place."
> becasue..why?
Too many opportunities for fraud. It muddies the transparency of the process.
> you don't want more people to vote?
As an end in itself? No. Elections should be on Sundays, precincts should be small, and any precinct where wait time exceeds about ten minutes at any time during the day should be split. People whose only reason for voting by mail is that they can't be arsed to go to a polling place are not likely to be well enough informed to do anything but introduce noise. The parties want unthinking knee-jerk votes. I don't.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Driver's license is not proof of citizenship.
No, but it generally works as proof of identity. Around here, it's not enough to be a citizen, you have to be a registered voter. And if you're registered, you have a designated polling place where they have a book with the names of the voters. You use the Driver's License or other photo ID to prove that you match the name. Then they take your signature and check off your name to discourage repeat voting.
Re:Voting only works if really unique (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need to force people to "show their papers" to avoid the problem of voting multiple times. One man one vote is easy enough to enforce even without Gestapo tactics.
How?
One way that's popular in less-developed areas is to simply apply an indelible dye to the voter's hand. Since it takes a few days for the dye to wear off and the election is only for a single day, it makes it pretty hard for someone to attempt to vote more than once. Providing that the election officials are honest, anyway.