And I have the sticker to prove it
I early voted today. Usually when I early vote, I walk right in and right out. Today, there was a bit of a line. That could indicate higher turnout this election. Beats me.
Also, seems McCain/Palin finally got someone to put out some signs.
I’d tell you how I voted but you could probably guess.
Nothing too exciting to note except that, honestly, can we have paper ballots for those who want them? Folks over the age of 70 aren’t too good on these newfangled voting gizmos. And everyone else has to wait on them. Just sayin’.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I forget exactly, but maybe 8 or 10 years or so ago Oregon switched over to a 100% Vote-By-Mail system for all elections.
After voting this way for so many years now, I really don’t understand why all states don’t go this route. You get to vote in the privacy of your own home and on your own time. It’s really very convenient.
The one thing that ‘bothers’ me (but not really…) is that because of the size and weight of the ballot envelope, it is marked “extra postage required” however they don’t tell you how much extra…
Since I live about 3 blocks from the County Clerk’s Office I just hand carried it and saved the postage.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I graduated in January 2007 with a degree in Computer Science, and I was stumped for about 30 seconds when using our rotary-controlled computer voting machines yesterday.
They apparently wanted some sort of information screen before the voting, but didn’t have that function, so they just made it the first “vote” screen, with the information they wanted to convey as the first selection, and “Click here to continue” as the second on. You had to “vote” for “Click here to continue” in order to get to the first real voting page.
If I can’t get it immediately, why on earth should I expect that the 80 year-old great-grandmother coming in right after me on her walker will be able to see what they did and adapt to it?
October 28th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Just so happens I was looking at some of the TN stats last night. Knox and Hamilton counties are at about 24% of registered voters having voted early or by absentee. I looked at some past elections and in the past 10 years early voting has grown substantially although overall turnout seems level. So I don’t think we can tell if turnout will be heavy from early voting.
From a news story in Chattanooga paper urging early voting:
“By the close of voting Saturday, more than 41,000 people had cast their ballots early in Hamilton County, said Charlotte Mullis-Morgan, deputy superintendent of elections. In the 2004 presidential election, a total of 41,780 voters cast ballots during the 15-day early voting period in Hamilton County, election officials have said.”
Here is the site for TN election info
http://www.state.tn.us/sos/election/index.htm
October 28th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
You’re in luck on the paper voting. A new state law requires that voter verifiable paper ballots and optical scan machines be in place statewide in time for th 2010 elections. There’s leftover HAVA funding in place to pay for it.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
It should be a high turnout this year as there’s already at least one “I Voted” sticker on every park bench and headstone in town.