I took advantage of early voting, too. In Nevada we have absentee voting by mail, or early voting which is available in places like malls, public libraries, grocery store parking lots, etc.
What would be really great is if all the ads, postcards, phone calls, pollsters, etc would stop bothering me now.
We live in a small town and I enjoy voting on Election Day. The line is never too long and I get to talk to friends and neighbors.
So for those with early voting can you just go to any polling place and vote? Here we are assigned a specific polling place and only voters from those precinct(S) can vote there.
How do they check the voter rolls to see if you are on it?
Being where I am in NY there are barely any tv ads - only one for a congressional district that is an open seat and not even my district. Schumer has run a few feel good ads but his opponent hasn’t run any. I think most NYers probably don’t even now there is a Senate race here.
I haven’t been called by any campaign yet, either.
In MD, we can vote early at any of the early voting locations in our county. They have several ballot versions available. The election judges checked us against the voter list, and made sure we got the ballot version for our address.
^ so they have a list of every registered voter in the county? Wow!
@emilybee I’m jealous of your lack of media outreach. We are bombarded where we live - constant callers, tons of ads, tons of mailers (threw out 6 from today’s mail alone), even when I want to watch something on youtube it starts with a targeted political ad. It has gotten very old and none if it will sway my vote.
Well, my state is never in play and neither is my congressional district. You wouldn’t even know there is a presidential race on. No ads from either candidate, no yard signs cluttering up the landscape, no robo calls, etc.
All I got today in the mail was a Saks catalog. 
I was surprised when talking to my S the other week that the commercials are non stop in MA until I remembered that it’s the same TV market that New Hampshire is in.
Usually in an area with early voting, several locations have the list of all the voters in an area and a voter can vote at the most convenient location. Most Californians vote by mail, but my county also has several early voting locations.
By the way, if you want to know where you can vote, type VOTE into your Google search box. It puts up a menu of states. You pick your state and it gives you voting info about registering and voting. If you put your address in, it tells you where your early voting locations are (if there are any) and what their hours are, and it tells where your Election Day polling place is.
Our early voting is all computerized. Each parish (county) has centralized early voting locations. They check you in and give you a credit card type thing that you put in a slot on the voting machine.
Early voting ends a week before the election. When they print the voter lists for each precinct, if you voted early it will be indicated in the book so they wouldn’t let you vote again.
I volunteered to be a poll worker this year. I have a feeling I’m taking my life in my hands! I’ll report back. Assuming I survive.
Yep, and depending on the type of machine, sometimes have a rack of ballots for different districts, zones, dog catcher races.
In the olden days, there was early voting in a mall near me. You’d tell your name and address, and the worker would look it up and go pull the correct ballot from a cabinet that was sort of like a map drawer, thin and long drawers. Just in the same county, there could be 15 versions because of transportation districts and judges and park districts and you could vote anywhere in the county early. If you voted on election day, you had to vote in your precinct. One year they did do a ‘vote anywhere on election day’ and it was a disaster. If you had your voter postcard, you could use the ‘old’ machines but if you didn’t have that card they had to look you up one by one, set the computer, and of course there were 100 ballot issues to read. Scrapped that plan.
Now we receive them by mail, and you get the ballot for your address. My friend lives less than a 1/2 mile from me, but is in a different transportation district (I know someone running, and was trying to drum up votes for him) so she has a different ballot.
I don’t think I’ll get an ‘I voted’ sticker! How will I get my free stuff like coffee or tacos?
We don’t get I voted stickers. Any one could stroll in and get a coffee and a pastry here.
Everyone in my town of 35k wouid have the same ballot. It’s very parochial in NY and the counties have relatively very little power. Hardly anything is done here on a county wide basis.
We just walk into our polling place, tell them our name, which is in a big book, we sign it, get our ballot and vote. No ID required at all.
I had two jobs on my way home after school. Vote and flu shot. I got to city hall at 5:07. They had closed the doors on the crowd inside and politely asked me to come back tomorrow.
I was successful with the flu shot. Amazingly painless and free with my pretty basic insurance. My friendly neighborhood pharmacist jabbed me before I even felt it .
50% done.
Early voting is one of my favorite things about Texas! Yes, you can go to any polling place in your county. I typically vote at our neighborhood grocery store. Our neighborhood’s Facebook group helps monitor the line length which has been crazy long. I voted tonight and was in a line of about 100 which was relatively short according to FB.
@emilybee - They were checking us against an electronic database. That was interesting to me. In previous years I remembe separate lines for different letters of the alphabet so they could check at section of a printout of the voter roll.
The “I voted” stickers are my favorite part about election day. I wear that sticker proudly.
Not too many ads here but when I went to a different part of the state (which has about the same demographic and voting makeup of where I live), every other commercial was a political one. Drove me nuts!
An “I voted” sticker came with my absentee ballot.
Washington state needs to add an “I Voted” sticker to their ballot mailing!
I have the same set up as emilybee (not surprising also NY). I do see some signs for Count Legislators and Judges and there is a race for the local district attorney. I watch so little TV and mostly listen to NPR I probably wouldn’t know if there were ads. We haven’t gotten any Vote for me flyers yet.
I want a sticker!