I was in and out for early voting in 10 minutes. We are a paper ballot that runs through a scanner state so that they can do manual audits if needed, although since we aren’t a swing state I can’t imagine that it would be an issue except for a local election.
We are in the county, and lines were longer for places where most people live in the city limits because they have more things to vote for - city government and also there were some ballot initiatives that didn’t apply to us. So, we only had 4 offices to mark, one of which was unopposed, one of which was the presidential election, and the other 2 just had candidates from the 2 major parties. Lines have always been longer when the ballots take longer to fill out. Also, social media helps - we went when we did because we saw a post in the local community group that there were no lines.
We voted by mail. Unfortunately, a couple of my choices were really voting “against” someone else, not voting for someone, so I didn’t have to do as much research. Husband dropped them off at a designated location, and we each got notice they were received.
The ‘vote here’ signs went up on Friday at our rec center. The box has been there for 3 weeks, so maybe they are doing in person there too?
I learn new things all the time. Our Attorney General and Sec of state are really pro-active and want everyone to vote and be safe. A new law restricts any weapons in the voting places, even permitted guns; carry permit or open carry - not allowed.
Dropped our ballots at the city hall box a few minutes ago! Will hit Main Street for food. I suggested driving to the ballot box because it looked like it might rain, but Mr. shut that down quickly. So here we are, walking!
I voted early last month by mail in ballot in Pa. This time there were no people “guarding” the drop box, which was nice. My entire family voted via mail
Voted by mail this week. Turned in ballot at post office drop box. Received text that it was received and counted. Two adult children still registered at my house but living two hours away. They both dropped ballots into mail as well. Not a swing state.
Checked online. My ballot has been checked as accepted. I’m presuming that means I jumped through the hoops signing and identifying myself and my inner envelope is now stacked up and ready to be opened and scanned.
Hopefully this counts as I won’t vote until Election Day…
I worked our early voting one county location for 3 hours today. In. A nonpartisan volunteer position. Average wait was an hour in line - often 1.5 hours. Curbside wait was also at least 1.5 hours from start to finish.
Part of my job was asking people exiting from voting (well over 100 feet from the exit) how their experience was. Not one negative comment .
I love hearing all these stories of people voting!
We just donated to Pizza to the Polls which sends pizzas to long lines to help keep people fed while they wait to vote. It is completely non-partisan, so hope it is ok to share.
I think that is a great idea! It wasn’t needed where I voted (the wait was like 5 minutes), but that is a great way to support voting. I honestly never understood why people don’t bother to vote, where we have had elections where less than half the eligible voters vote. Heavy turnout alone tells politicians that people are not apathetic and care about what they are doing and watching what they do.
Me too. I last worked election day when I was 13, in 8th grade. A friend and I were at a party headquarters and just helped answer phones and went on a few ‘runs’ to get people to the polls.
Texas was pretty straight forward. I stood in line for about 45 min. I showed my ID and they handed me my ballot, which I fed into the machine. I made my selections. Then the machine printed my ballot with a bar code. I made sure that my selections were correct then I fed that into the counting machine. Then I got a “I Voted” sticker.
That has been my experience in four state and a half a dozen polling locations. Really nice and really efficient and helpful. Sometimes I think that we should put them in charge of the government instead of just the polling places…
In my tiny town…40% of the registered voters did early voting, and a couple hundred more absentee. The lines at the polls tomorrow will be smaller, and should move quickly where I am.
Looking forward to voting tomorrow in a rural area of a swing state. Only one polling location for the whole town. Two poll workers will look up my name in the paper voter registry and I have to sign my name. Paper ballot with scantron style bubbles that is fed into a machine.
It’s typically a pleasant process with short lines and I’m sure to run into friends and neighbors. It’s nice to catch up with people and seeing our 18 year olds voting for the first time makes me tear up. I miss when my polling place was a church with a bake sale–those were the good old days.
A few elections ago I had a paper ballot rejected by the voting machine–it was an error on my part. They gave me a new ballot and let me correct/recast my vote. That experience shifted my feelings on absentee/early voting which in our area is only paper handed over to a person to be counted later. No receipt or confirmation later on. We have razor thin margins all around in state and national races and I just feel better voting in-person when it’s easy enough for me to do.
DH and I returned from a long trip abroad and were glad we requested absentee ballots. They were delivered with our held mail and we dropped them off today.
The line was surprisingly long at our municipal bldg (Chicago suburb)…easily over 100 people. All we had to do was drop them into the ballot box. it probably saved us at least an hour of our time.
Tomorrow we’ll proudly wear our “I voted” stickers. Please vote, everyone! It feels so good!
So here we are, walking!