Thought it might be fun to share positive stories, sights seen, etc. from your polling place if you voted today - or if you voted early voting.
S who lives in town met me this morning to vote at our precinct.
The FIRST positive was they finally got rid of the checking in process where they have to scroll through page after paper page of names on what looks like old fashioned computer printouts to find your name to sign in! All computerized this morning with these nifty tablets and one worker assisting per tablet. Very efficient!
The SECOND positive was that the person who checked us in was actually a student at the high school S teaches at! So great to see a young person dressed professionally and doing her job efficiently and with a smile - she said she would be there till 9pm! He teaches at an inner city jr high/high school and it also made him proud to see his students representing. I as his mom, appreciated her greeting him and talking to him as “Mr. Abasket”
Let’s share positives of the day, if you’ve got them.
My daughter and I both early voted. Both our polling places were packed! She waited 45 minutes to vote. I think that is super positive
It was also my first time voting in our new state and the poll workers were awesome. There must have been issues with voters pulling out the cards before the machines had officially recorded the votes, so they talked every single person through the process of voting, making sure the printed ballot matched who you voted for, that the ballot was cast, and that we let the machine eject the card, instead of removing it ourselves. They were very well staffed, super attentive to elderly voters who may have needed extra help, and were just pleasant and happy.
First person I shuttled was an elderly Black woman and her husband. She was so excited and told me about how she couldn’t vote when she was younger and that as soon as her mom could, she’d walk to the polling place no matter the weather.
I love voting at the polling station in our rural town. They always have a ton of booths so there’s usually not a line. It’s fun seeing neighbors and the parents of our kids’ friends. DH and I are going shortly - we figure mid-morning would be a good time to go.
I’ll be going tonight after work, but I’m sadly disappointed that out of about 15 people in my department, there are only 2 people who plan on voting! My co-worker who just turned 50 isn’t even registered!!!
Sorry - that goes against the spirit of the thread!!! LOL I’m like @MaineLonghorn - very rural area, always tons of machines and never a wait!
We don’t have voting machines in our tiny, quaint New England village. We have paper ballots, we fill them in, and then insert them in a slot on an ancient wooden box while the fire chief hand cranks it in. It has a little bell that dings when the ballot lands in the box. I love this process, it always makes me smile. I hope voting machines never come to our polling place (the firehouse).
The person in front of me was a mom with an 8 or 9 year old, walking him through how to cast a vote. Yay democracy!
Walking back from my polling place about a half mile away, I passed the polling place two doors from my house (Don’t ask, it doesn’t make sense to me either). I saw an old friend holding a sign for a candidate for whom I would never vote. We had a great time catching up and made plans to get together. She knows we hold different political views but we like each other anyway.
I havent yet been to vote but plan on going early afternoon. According to a neighbor, it wasn’t crowded in the early morning when the weather was good. It’s been pouring ever since so I hope that doesn’t keep people away. I think many people voted early here.
My positive story is related but not from the polling place. This is the first election where my dd is eligible to vote but she is across the country at school. I completely forgot about the fact that she could vote until talking with some door to door campaigners a couple of weeks ago. I meant to talk to her about getting an absentee ballot but due to a family emergency followed by a couple of stressful/busy weeks where I was out of town, I forgot.
A couple of days ago, our bank called with a fraud alert on dd’s debit card. While on the phone with the bank, she called me on our home phone and proceeded to tell me some recent trouble she had had using her card. She started out by saying, “I was at the mail center trying to buy postage for my absentee ballot and my card wouldn’t work…” Wow, I didn’t know she’d taken it upon herself to even figure out how to get a ballot! I didn’t have a chance to ask her about it b/c I had the bank also on the phone still. I haven’t talked with her since, but do plan to ask her about it. But I was so proud to hear that she took the initiative to get herself an absentee ballot (and reminiscent of another CC thread, she actually knows how to buy stamps LOL).
Then yesterday, I saw a post on her University Facebook page with a link to a Washington Monthly article about the top colleges that encourage their students to vote. Her university is one of those included in the list. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that she managed to figure out how to vote from afar, given her intended major and the classes she has been taking as well as the fact that she attends a designated “changemaker” campus.
Fingers crossed I don’t have to wait long this afternoon!
I was delighted to hear this morning that my polling place has been very busy all morning. Also delighted that I only had to wait – oh, about 10 seconds.
I always love going to vote in person to the polling place in my neighborhood, which for the last few years has been the local fire station a block away. This year, the polling place was moved a mile away to our huge public high school! In my opinion, this is not a good place to go vote since there is very little parking around there during the day and it’s a now a longer walking distance to get there for me. I have no idea why it was moved so much farther away. This all turns out to be moot, however, since somehow in getting a new Real ID CA driver’s license in September, I was changed to a permanent vote-by-mail voter! I have no idea how this happened. All I can figure out is that I checked (or didn’t check) some box on the application form. Although I was annoyed at first, it was so easy to send in the ballot last week by mail and not have to worry about the crowds at the high school.
@4kids4us you mentioned that your daughter had to buy postage to mail her absentee ballot. What state is she in? My ballot had an envelope with the return postage paid. Do people in other states have to pay postage as well? That seems like a disincentive since you have to go through an extra step to mail it.
I miss this. Went for a walk by the lake a week ago and dropped my mail-in ballot in a box for that purpose at our lakeside community center. Nice walk, but I miss the camaraderie. And the sticker.
The precinct captain at my polling place is a middle-aged gentleman from Jamaica. He is a walking party and is practically a celebrity. Even when it is crowded, the experience of being in the school building is just flat-out fun. People in the neighborhood talk about seeing him on each election day because he sets such an incredibly positive, welcoming, and inclusive tone for everyone.
My college kid just sent a picture of herself and her friend with “I voted” stickers. Another is same-day registering at the polls. All three were out of staters but re-registered in their college town because it’s a contested district.
