Remember: Go Out And Vote Today

kaisersozei · 11-04-2008, 10:39 AM

Got in line at 6:15 under a steady rain, made it into the school gym at 7:00, marked my paper ballot in about 30 seconds, and then stood in line for another hour because the ONE optical scanning machine at our polling location was jammed and no one knew how to fix it. It would come on, then shut off, annoying alarms sounding, then restart, work for a few ballots, then jam again, alarms sounding, etc. Bunch of elderly elections officials huddled around pushing & pulling on things--one guy, no lie, smacked the side of it like my dad used to do to "adjust" our console color TV.

They finally decided that they shouldn't keep nearly 600 people couped up in the gym for so long and went to "Emergency Back-up Plan B", which was to have everyone drop their ballot off in a black box by the door, to be scanned in later.

There were dozens of elections officials and lawyers from the Protect the Vote campaign observing, but apparently only 1 tech crew for our entire county. Nothing like a little paper jam to screw up an otherwise well-orchestrated voting day.

11-04-2008, 10:39 AM	#21
kaisersozei The Homebrew Hammer Join Date: Oct 2008 First Name: Gerard Location: Midlothian, VA Posts: 3,183 Trading: (40)	Re: Remember: Go Out And Vote Today Got in line at 6:15 under a steady rain, made it into the school gym at 7:00, marked my paper ballot in about 30 seconds, and then stood in line for another hour because the ONE optical scanning machine at our polling location was jammed and no one knew how to fix it. It would come on, then shut off, annoying alarms sounding, then restart, work for a few ballots, then jam again, alarms sounding, etc. Bunch of elderly elections officials huddled around pushing & pulling on things--one guy, no lie, smacked the side of it like my dad used to do to "adjust" our console color TV. They finally decided that they shouldn't keep nearly 600 people couped up in the gym for so long and went to "Emergency Back-up Plan B", which was to have everyone drop their ballot off in a black box by the door, to be scanned in later. There were dozens of elections officials and lawyers from the Protect the Vote campaign observing, but apparently only 1 tech crew for our entire county. Nothing like a little paper jam to screw up an otherwise well-orchestrated voting day.