Election 2008 Dispatches
Mid-Afternoon Election Report-- 'So Far, So Good' Says Pew Center on the States’ electionline.org
6:30 p.m. Denver
David Becker
After spending all day in the polls in Denver and Boulder, it’s pretty clear that the major election administration story here is inaccurate voter rolls, and the high number of provisional ballots that resulted.
Visiting two polling places in the late afternoon and evening hours, dozens of provisionals were reported, almost all coming from voters who didn’t appear on the voter rolls (though all had registered). There appear to be inconsistencies between polling places and poll workers as to whether voters are adequately redirected to correct polling places, and whether provisionals are only used as a last resort when a regular ballot cannot be cast. It’ll be important, after all is said and done, to review the provisionals and how and whether they were counted, and see if improvements can be made in the future.
t the Denver Indian Center, poll watchers reported that the number of provisionals was particularly high, and poll workers were not doing an adequate job of finding voters their correct polling place.
At the Barnum Recreation Center, I verified the problem. In my thirty minutes observing voting, I personally witnessed at least eight voters voting provisionally, which was more than a third of the total number of voters voting during that time span. A young couple with their newborn came in and were properly redirected to their correct polling place, and were going there to vote.
On the bright side, the polling sites seemed to be well-run otherwise. Early voting seems to have really had a positive effect reducing the strains on Election Day. Lines were not particularly long, and despite good turnout, few if any voters were waiting longer than 30 minutes to vote.
One of those voters was Rachelle, a young voter voting in her first presidential election. She was joined by her mother Debra, who voted by mail, and her little sister Isabelle, who witnessed the whole process. They were very pleased by how smoothly things ran. Rachelle said it was very important for her to vote because “it is for our lives, the lives of young people.” Her vote counted not only for her, but for Isabelle as well, who got a successful introduction to American democracy.
4:00pm – Denver
David Becker
The afternoon lull has hit, and turnout is lighter than it’s been earlier in the day. Visiting polling places as varied as the BMH-BJ Congregation, Windsor Gardens (with a large senior citizen population), the Park Hill Methodist Church, and the Hiawatha Davis, Jr. Recreation Center, it appears lines are currently short, though a steady stream of voters are still coming in. Enthusiasm still runs high here in the Rocky Mountain State, and campaign volunteers continue to campaign on the streets. One can hardly pass a major intersection without seeing a volunteer waving an Obama banner.
This was the calm, and now we’ll see if the storm of final after-work turnout hits starting at 5:00pm.
1:30pm – Boulder, CO
David Becker
The University of Colorado is one of the most beautiful campuses in the country, nestled in the foothills of the Rockies just a short drive from Denver. And here is where I met Christian Gonzalez, an 18-year-old student from Denver voting for the first time.
She waited in line at Libby Hall, one of the four polling places set up on campus, with about 20 to 30 other students. It was lunchtime, and there was a constant stream, keeping the lines somewhat long. However, the poll workers seemed to be moving things relatively well, and most voters were finished within 30 minutes.
Christian found the experience satisfying, simple, and straightforward. “It was very important to vote – to finally have a voice and be heard,” she said. Despite the length of the ballot, she voted the entire thing.
Other students voting here seemed to be satisfied as well. Though there were only 11 booths, only 4 poll workers, and a slight bottleneck at check-in, the student voters, almost all of whom must have been voting for the first time, were high-spirited and patient, and took a great deal of pride in voting, each making sure they got their “I voted” sticker.
3 Democratic and 1 Republican poll watchers were present, and reported there had been a lot of traffic in the early morning, followed by this lunch rush. There had been 12 provisional ballots cast, mostly for voters in the wrong precinct who did not want to be redirected to their correct precinct. Some poll watchers were even handing out cookies to folks waiting in lines, as well as the poll workers, and Rock the Vote volunteers were similarly keeping everyone’s spirits up.
One possible note of concern is the fact that Boulder and Denver counties appear to be using simple ballot boxes to collect their paper ballots, rather than precinct-based tabulators, meaning the counts will be done at a central location after the polls close. This could lead to a high rate of overvotes, since voters won’t have the opportunity to correct their ballots at the polling place when they vote. This is particularly troubling given that the instructions that voters are being given do not appear to highlight this fact, particularly at CU, where almost all voters are first-time voters. We’ll have to keep a close eye on the overvote rates as returns come in
9:00 a.m. Denver
David Becker
Dwight Blackmon had never voted before. But this election, he will “get his opinion out, for once.” He along with about 60 other voters, were at Manual High School in the historic Five Points District to cast their ballots just after 8:00am. Though it was reported that there were long lines when polls first opened at 7:00am, those lines appeared to have been moving efficiently, and voters were generally able to vote throughout the morning in less than 30 minutes.
Though a first-time voter, Blackmon found the experience smooth. He showed up with his two sons, ages 5 and 3, and while he needed help navigating the complicated three-page paper ballot, he received excellent assistance from the chief poll worker, his young boys watching every step of the way.
At the Manual High School gym, there were 20 booths set up, most of them occupied, and 3 electronic voting machines for voters who needed them (though none were being used at the time). While there were lines about 20 people long to check in, the 15 or so poll workers seemed to be well-trained, and moving voters through the system efficiently.
Voters seemed to have similar experiences in other polling sites this morning. At Corona Presbyterian Church, voter turnout was very high. Ten minutes before the polls opened, there were already 40 people in line, and by 7:05 a.m. that number had doubled. This polling site saw problems in 2006, with exceptionally long lines and bottlenecks at check-in, but this year, it seems most of those problems had been resolved. While lines to check in were about 20 people long at times, they seemed to move relatively quickly, and voters seemed to be able to complete the voting process in less than 30 minutes. There were 24 booths, most occupied, and one electronic voting machine.
Colorado’s ballot is particularly long, with over a dozen referenda, a U.S. Senate race, U.S. House and state legislative races, and over 16 candidates on the ballot for President. Nevertheless, voters seemed to be well-prepared when entering the polling place, and able to cast their ballots relatively quickly.
Also noteworthy is the presence of poll watchers and campaign volunteers (all patiently observing from outside the 100 foot electioneering boundary). At each polling place, there were at least two volunteers for the Obama campaign, sometimes more, and at Corona Presbyterian Church there were also two non-partisan Election Protection volunteers.
Colorado has seen substantial changes to its election system since 2006, with machines decertified and recertified, and somewhere between a third and half of voters casting early ballots in this election. The current Secretary of State, Mike Coffman, is running for Tom Tancredo’s seat in Congress, and the Colorado State Election Director resigned a couple of months ago. Nevertheless, perhaps in part to the large number of early voters, indications this morning are that voting is going smoothly during the morning rush.
7:10 pm Boca Raton
Zachary Markovits
It is a calm, humid night as the poll workers break down the privacy booths at the Boca Raton fire station #4. People have been trickling in for the past hour, the major rush of the morning long past gone.
“People throughout today have taken their time with the ballot,” said the Election Deputy who did not want his name used. Spending the last hour informally timing these people, it generally took then about 2 minutes to check-in (tack on another 1.5 minutes if they didn’t know their polling place), between 4 and 10 minutes to fill out the ballot and another 30 seconds to scan it.
“It was a long ballot this year,” the deputy went on to say, “It took almost no time during the primary.”
The poll workers wait impatiently as the last two voters finish voting, breaking down the booths almost immediately once they are done and off to the scanner.
“Look, it’s been a long day,” the poll worker said to the voter as she hurried out, “and I want to go home.”
5:35 p.m. Delray Beach
Zachary Markovits
Early reports of machine failures at Carver Community Middle School appear to have been exaggerated. A technician was called to the site early in the day when poll workers were concerned about running out of paper tape in the scanners only to be assured that there was enough tape to last them through the day.
Jill Hepworth, the clerk at this site, invited me into the polling place to watch the proceedings. “The ballot only jams when the voter tries to use the privacy sleeve,” she assured me while the surrounding poll workers muttered muted affirmations. “[The sleeve] is a great idea, but the voter thinks they are supposed to put the two ballot pages in the sleeve into the scanner all at once and it folds up causing a jam.”
Each voter is given a privacy folder or sleeve to protect the confidentiality of their vote when outside the voting booth. “In order to scan the ballot properly,” said Santiago Guttierrez the poll worker in charge of the optical scan machine, “you need to remove the privacy sleeve. Some people have said to me, ‘But if you take off the sleeve, you can see who I voted for,’ as if I can remember!’
A better privacy folder may not have alleviated all privacy concerns in the polling place. While I was inside observing, one woman had her ballot returned from the optical scan machine as an overvote. Guttierrez suggested that she try the other machine, which produced the same result. Hepworth, Guttierrez and the voter then gathered around the ballot to try and find the mistake.
Eventually, with the voter flustered and slightly embarrassed, Hepworth issued her a fresh new ballot. It was completed and scanned with no error.
4:30 p.m. Boynton Beach
Zachary Markovits
Over 18 percent of voters in Palm Beach County have voted early, but this does not include the yet uncounted number of absentee ballots. Today is the last day to submit an absentee ballot to be counted, but voters who have attempted to drop these ballots at their local precincts are being directed elsewhere.
Abid Ali, elections clerk at the Boynton Beach Community High School polling place said that all absentee ballots had to be dropped off at the Supervisor of Elections Office.
This morning, at the Palm Beach Gardens City Hall, one voter decided to vote in person rather than go down to the local Election Center. “He had his ballot destroyed here in the precinct and then he could get a new ballot and vote. It’s pretty easy.”
3:30 p.m Boynton Beach
Zachary Markovits
The Faith Farm Ministries is a 57-year old rehabilitation center located on a campus in west Boynton Beach. The campus includes houses for the staff and patients, a new and used furniture shop that funds much of the center’s operations, a church, a hot dog and ice cream stand, a hair stylist (where you can receive a “divine hair design”), and today, a five precinct polling place.
Hal, an election judge who refused to give me his last name unless I called a camera crew, said that the line this morning was the longest line he’d seen in 9 years at the polls. “We didn’t get the line inside the building until around 11:00 am,” he said. The line had wrapped around the parking lot before the polls even opened.
When asked about people’s attitude he said, “People were expecting it. They were in line when we showed up at 6:00 this morning to set up, sittscattered throughout the field behind the polling place directing people where to park; a woman at the door directs the voters what precinct station to go to or where they can go look it up; a crowd of poll watchers are there to answer voter questions; and there seemed to be a bunch of poll workers just standing around chatting. When I arrived there was no discernable line and voters were making passing comments when leaving such as “That was quick” and “Thanks for keeping the line away.”
Teacher Michelle Vaughan had a “great” voting experience. She thought that compared to 2004, “it was much smoother this time.”
Dominique Lewis who works for IBM and was at the polls as a Democratic poll watcher took Michelle’s point one step further. “This is probably the smoothest election in Florida history,” he said. “This is so much better than 2000 or 2004.”
Those I’ve spoke with seem to like the new paper ballot process better than the voting machines in 2004. “I had no problem with the touch screen machines,” said James Waytek, a sales consultant who came from work in Wellington, “this is just easier: you take a pen and just slide it across the line. I feel more confident knowing that my vote is saved on paper in the box.”
After work, Waytek is planning on going home to watch the results on TV. “I can’t wait to see the turn-out,” he said. “So many people are talking about this stuff that have never talked before; I want to see if they actually go and vote.”
ing in little lawn chairs along the wall. No one has complained”
The poll workers here are focused on getting people through the process quickly: men with flags are
10: 15 am Palm Springs
Zachary Markovits
Palm Beach County is facing its third new type of voting technology in as many presidential elections: from the infamous butterfly ballots in 2000, to touch screen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines in 2004, to the current paper ballot with precinct optical scan machines.
Some at the Palm Springs Library polling place were not yet familiar with the new technology. “It was fine,” said Melissa Eastwood, “But it needs to show a digital screen or a print out of who I voted for. Otherwise how do I really know?”
To vote on these ballots, the voter simply connects the two halves of a broken arrow pointing to the person or ballot measure for which the voter intends to vote. Then the ballot is brought to an optical scan machine that scans the ballot for errors while tallying the votes.
Hilda Perez, a housewife in Palm Springs, accidentally voted for two candidates on her ballot. When the optical scan machine rejected one page of her ballot due to an overvote, she received a new ballot to remedy the error and vote again. “I just wasn’t paying attention,” she said.
Yet the poll worker running the one optical scanner in the precinct had already scanned the second page of Perez’s ballot. Although she could have kept the line moving, the poll worker made voters wait until Perez had finished completing her new ballot before scanning any new voters. This caused a slight back-up in the small meeting room and confusion in the polling place.
Adding to voter’s concerns was the length of the ballot. In Palm Beach County alone, there are thirteen people on presidential ballot including McCain and Obama, six statewide constitutional amendments, a countywide proposed charter change and several municipal issues depending where you live. Overall there are 185 different ballot styles all on three or four sides of a two page ballot.
At the Palm Springs Village Hall, Richard Robinson said he heard one woman exit the polls realizing that she had not voted for any of the amendments on the back of the first page of the ballot. “By the time she realized it was too late.”
It seems the combination of the long ballot and the new optical scan machines is causing voters the most worry. By far, the most repeated phrase I have heard today has been, “Are you sure it scans both sides?”
7:30 a.m. Palm Beach Gardens
Zachary Markovits
At 6:10 am, about 10 people sit in beach chairs in the lobby of the Palm Beach Gardens City Hall waiting for polls to open. Inside about 20 volunteers and poll workers are setting up voting stations below smiling photographic portraits of the town’s honored mayors.
As their numbers swell to 30 and all the voting booths are finally set up, the poll workers gather by precinct, raise their hand and take an oath, swearing to execute their duty to the upmost extent of their ability. The oath is read by Melissa Sunshine, the head election clerk and when she is finished, the poll workers give a smattered chorus of “I Dos” alongside a couple of chuckled “Amens.”
As in many polling places, this location has consolidated five precincts under one roof with two more at the fire station next door and another at the community center across the street. “We have a laptop if people get confused,” said Melissa Sunshine, the head election clerk at this polling place. “We can look up their information and send them to the right place.”
Yet this fact did not console the first two people in line who showed up at 4:30 am only to find out at 6:50 am that they were in the wrong location. “They certainly wanted to kill the messenger,” said Larry Helmich, a retired asset manager who, as precinct deputy, informed this couple of their error.
“You can tell who hasn’t voted since 2004,” he went on, casually interrupting our talk by yelling “thank you for voting” to people leaving or entering the polling place. “This used to be precinct 1029 three years ago, but it moved to the community center the next year. They should have checked the paper.”
With 10 minutes until the polls open, the poll workers are voraciously tearing through the stapled voter rolls, comparing them to the newly received early voting lists and highlighting the names of those who have already voted. One of the precincts in the room, was unable to get to this task before the polls opened. “As you have time throughout the day,” Sunshine shouted to the workers at the table, “go through and mark those that have already voted.”
“I expect there to be a huge turnout, but no problems,” Sunshine said to me as she smiled and waved her crossed fingers. “There may be lines.”
By 7:00 am when the polls opened, there were 92 people were waiting to vote.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Lauder Hill
Zachary Markovits
A long line of people stretch out from the Lauderhill Mall’s entrance, sandwiched between a Boost Mobile Store and a satellite office of the Florida Education Center. Here, one of the 17 Broward County early vote centers is being run out of a large unrented storefront in the mall. Tai-Kora Banks, who just moved here from Tampa, was surprised at how well it went. “Besides the four hour wait,” she said, “things went very smoothly.”
On the last day of early voting in here in Florida, the long lines continue to be the big story. At the Hollywood Branch Library vote center, one cannot even see the library from the end of the line. Angel Ortiz, a resident of Hollywood got in line at 5:00 am so that he could vote in time for the Dolphins game. By 11:15 am, he had still not entered the building.
Police at the Hollywood Library vote center have been telling voters that they can’t move far from the line or hold spots for family members unless they want to forfeit their place. “What about special needs people,” Chad Mroczkowski a resident of Hollywood suggested, “it doesn’t seem fair to them.”
Other than the long lines, one poll watcher (who did not want to be named) said that the major issues have been confusion about the type of identification one needs and where one is allowed to vote.
“The poll workers just don’t seem that well trained,” she said, “but miscommunication is being dealt with rapidly. The Supervisor of Elections walked the line to give information to everyone about their right to vote when a poll worker mistakenly told a voter from out of county that they are not allowed to vote here. They are making sure people know what to do.”
In Broward County, an individual who has moved to the county but has not updated their driver’s license is able to vote so long as they are registered in their old county and sign an oath that they have not, nor will not vote there under penalty of law.
Despite all the long lines, few people have seemed disgruntled and even less have left the line. David Berretech from Dania Beach saw only four or five people leave in the three hours he was waiting at the Hollywood Regional Library. At the Northwest Regional Library in Coral Springs, the long line had taken on something of a party atmosphere. A few people were throwing a football, cheers erupted when a woman brought food back from nearby eateries for a group of people in line and most people were chatting with their neighbors, reading books, listening to music, or shading themselves from the hot sun under umbrellas.
Inside the vote center it was surprisingly empty and calm considering the number of people waiting in line outside. Four Electronic Voting Identification machines (EViDs) were matched with four ballot printers. There was an empty, roped switchback for people to queue until a voting booth opens and then a number of scanners on the wall. Joseph and Barbara Handrahan waited five hours to vote, but said that the voting was “easy and smooth, just like they told us in line.”
The major hold-up at all of these vote centers appeared to be at the check-in table where the voter’s identification is scanned by the EViDs and they receive their printed ballot. The main early voting concern in Florida was the new ballot on demand system. There were, however, few reports of machines going down here. In Miami-Dade, each vote center had a manufacturer technician on site to fix any problems that arose, problems that occurred with relative infrequency.
Instead, these counties saw huge turnout on each day of early voting, severely taxing the system’s limited capacity to check people in. Most poll watchers estimated that the vote centers were processing people at the rate of about 100 to 150 voters per hour. In each of the vote centers it was typically observed that there were open voting booths and open, or quickly available ballot scanners. The EViDs however, were always mobbed and the printers were constantly running.
Yet at the Hollywood Branch Library, the extremely long wait time did help one voter. A poll watcher said she was asked whether an expired driver’s license would be sufficient identification for voting. When a voting attorney told the voter that it would not be accepted, a stranger behind him in line suggested that he run around the corner to renew it at the neighboring DMV. Two hours later, the poll watcher saw him back in line much further up; the stranger had saved his place.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Miami
Zachary Markovits
The Churro truck outside the West-Dade Regional Library in Miami-Dade County Florida is doing great business this Saturday. The West Dade Regional Library houses one of Miami-Dade County’s 20 early vote centers and although the vote center does not open until 9:00 am, by 8:00 am the line was already snaking its way through the pathways of the neighboring playground and park.
“I’ve never seen it this long before,” one of the library staff exclaimed.
The first people in line arrived at the polls sometime around 5:30 a.m, three and a half hours before the polls opened. Tony Estevez, who showed up with his friend at around 6:45 a.m., said that getting there in early morning “was worth it.”
“There are too many complications and discrepancies on Election Day and this is a sure thing,” he said. “I pass by this place on my way to work every day so I knew that there would be a long line.”
Since adopting it in 2002, early voting has become extremely popular in Florida. In Miami-Dade, 208,000 voted early in 2004, about 15 percent of the total voters. As of Friday evening, 225,895 people had already voted early, well over 18 percent of all currently registered voters and far outpacing 2004’s numbers.
Miami-Dade is using a new type of optical scan voting technology at early vote centers allowing for ballot on demand printing. When a voter enters the polling place, they approach an Electronic Voter Identification system (EVID) that finds a voter’s registration information in the database. These “electronic voter registration books” allows a voter from anywhere in the county to vote at any early vote center and are connected via a secure network connection. The poll worker scans the voter’s ID and then gives her an oath to sign. Then the voter lines up to receive their ballot which is printed on one of a few large ballot printers in the back of the room and tailored to the initiatives in the municipality or precinct where the voter resides. The voter is then required to sign another form that confirms their receipt of the right ballot before going to vote. At the West-Dade Library, this whole process took from between 4 and 6 minutes. After voting, the ballot is scanned and counted at an optical scan machine.
Elizabeth Lopez, the clerk at the West Dade Regional Library said that so far, things have moved rather smoothly. “We have lots of help: four goodwill ambassadors, parking lot attendees and library staff,” Lopez said. “The printers have been an issue on occasion, but not often.”
Some voters, however were not so confident. West-Miami resident Jose Gonzales, who recently moved here from New York, was concerned that the optical scan machine counted his vote correctly. “I wish the machine confirmed who I voted for so I could be sure.”
As for the long lines, each voting center is doing what it can to make people more comfortable. The Miami-Dade Elections Office has equipped them with fans and bottles of water to pass out to those waiting in line. Carolina Lopez, an aide to the Deputy Director of Miami-Dade Elections, said that they have been working hard to streamline the process since early voting began. Each center was instructed to hand out numbers to people in line so that the order of the line is preserved and those who cannot stand for long can go sit down. At the West-Dade Regional Library, this caused some confusion as the numbers were handed out in descending order, but called in ascending order.
The Elections Office has also increased the amount of information provided for people waiting in line. “In the first week, people just didn’t know how to use these new ballots. They were spending a lot of time in the voting booth simply trying to figure it out.” To remedy this, they increased the number of people outside providing information to those waiting and started handing out voter guides early in the process. In addition, the office invested in more EVIDs, scanners and printers for each of their vote centers, maximizing the number of machines that would fit in the room.
Yet even with these efforts, lines were pervasive. The shortest wait time was at the Elections Department in downtown Miami where people waited for only about 50 minutes. At the North Miami Public Library, however the line was substantially longer. Rosta Richardson arrived at the Library at 10 am after working an 8 hour night shift and left the polls at 4:30 pm, six and a half hours later. “You never know what can happen and you have to go when you have time,” she said.
According to Lopez, the county has tried to address these wait time inequities by publishing the wait times online. “We count one person as they go through the process and update the times on the web-page” she said. For those without internet, the information is also available by calling the 311 informational line.
Despite extremely long wait times, there were few reported complaints or attrition from the line. After just under six hours in line at the North Miami Library, voter Dean Robertson praised the work of the elections team. “This was more organized than anything I’ve seen. I only saw one person leave the line in almost six hours. It was all very good.”
“People are generally in good spirits when they reach me, despite waiting for three hours” said one poll worker who stood at the threshold of the West Miami City Hall vote center. Bobby Henry, an attorney serving as a poll watcher in this election agreed: “The only complaint we get is that there is no available bathroom since city hall is closed on the weekends.”
6:47 p.m., Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
Polls closed quietly on the west side of Indianapolis after a day of heavy turnout. Several precincts closed their polls at 6:00 pm with no voters left in line.
The precinct inspector for a polling site that encompasses IUPUI University campus said that turnout was high and problems were low.
“We had some problems with the students,” she said. “Some thought they were registered but were not on the books, and a few had problems providing photo ID.” Those students all filled out provisional ballots. The inspector said it was only a total of 10 – 12 voters.
Though she said turnout for the day was the highest she could ever remember, by the time polls closed, there were no voters in line.
Precinct Judge Jenny Prinz also saw her poll at the Indiana History Center close with no voters in line. Prinz reported a steady flow of voters, but no major problems.
Prinz and her fellow pollworkers finished the day by tallying the 190 absentee ballots for the precinct. Prinz said none of the absentee ballots were challenged.
Local media reported lines as long as three hours at certain precincts in Indianapolis throughout the day. A precinct at Carmel High School in Carmel, a small, affluent suburb north of Indianapolis, reported a line that was, at one point, five hours long. But most precincts in Indianapolis did not see lines anywhere near that long.
“We were in and out with no wait when we voted this afternoon,” Indianapolis resident Jeff Collins said of his down town polling location.
Polls close at 6:00 p.m. local time in Indiana. Because portions in the extreme northwest and southwest of the state are on Central Time, results will not be released until at least 7:00 EST.
6:00 p.m. Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
File Under: Only on Election Day
Two Marion County Election Commissioners were handcuffed and detained on Tuesday afternoon, after being mistaken for bank robbers.
The robber struck an Old National Bank on the north side of Indianapolis, and then reportedly got into a taxi cab. When the two Commissioners drove by in a taxi to deliver absentee ballots to a nearby precinct, police stopped the cab and arrested the Commissioners.
“They were a little shaken up about it,” Angie Nussmeyer, Communications Specialist for the Marion County Clerk’s office, said, “but they are fine now, and are back out delivering absentee ballots.”
5:30 p.m. Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
Though the legal battle over how to process challenged absentee ballots between the Marion County Clerk, a Democrat, and Marion County Republicans ended in favor of the County Republicans on Monday, the possibility for Election Day trouble regarding absentee ballots is far from resolved.
The County Republicans filed a law suit to stop Marion County Clerk Elizabeth White from instructing her pollworkers to count any challenged absentee ballots on Election Day. The legal challenge made it all the way to the Indiana Supreme Court on Monday, where a unanimous decision was handed down in favor of the County Republicans.
Any challenged absentee ballots will now be processed as if they were provisional ballots. In his concurring opinion, Justice Robert Rucker noted that “‘the challenge procedure under [Indiana’s absentee law] is the same as though the ballot was cast by the voter in person.’ That procedure in turn requires the challenged voter to cast a provisional ballot.”
Challenged absentee ballots will now go before the County Elections Board where each challenged voter will be offered a hearing to defend her vote. The ballots, even if found valid, will therefore not be reflected in Election Night tallies.
Under White’s interpretation of Indiana law, the precinct inspector, along with the two partisan precinct judges, would have examined the ballots. If the challenge is unanimously decided to be frivolous, the ballot would have been counted on Election Day. The County Republicans argued that if such a ballot was later found to be invalid, there would be no way to “uncount” the vote.
Angie Nussmeyer, the Communications Specialist for the Marion County Clerk’s office, had concerns over the Court’s ruling. “We have only 10 days to certify the election,” she said. “If there are mass challenges, and we have to process 30,000 challenged absentee ballots, it will be a logistical nightmare.”
Nussmeyer explained that because the ballots in question are mailed in, the voter is never given the opportunity to fill out an affidavit to protect her vote, as Indiana law demands when a voter casts a ballot in person. Under the guidelines of the Supreme Court’s decision, each challenged absentee voter must be notified and given a hearing before the County Election Board.
If there are a large number of challenged absentee ballots, Nussmeyer warned it would be difficult for the Clerk’s office to notify all the voters (by phone or mail), schedule and hold individual hearings, make rulings and count the valid ballots, all within 10 days.
To further complicate the situation, high turnout in central Indiana is delaying the processing of absentee ballots. Under Indiana law, absentee ballots must return to the precinct in which the voter would have voted on Election Day to be counted. Pollworkers typically process those ballots during down time throughout the day. However, with a steady stream of voters all day long, there has been very little down time.
Pollworkers may not be able to process the absentee ballots until the last voter has cast a ballot and the poll site officially closes. Polls close at 6:00 p.m. in Indiana. Though, generally, any voter who is in line by 6:00 p.m. will still be allowed to vote. It is very possible that it could be past 7:00 p.m. before some precincts in Marion County even begin to look at absentee ballots.
As of 4:30 pm, the Clerk’s office has received a number of reports of challenged absentee ballots, but was not able to issue a statement on how significant that number was, Nussmeyer said.
1 p.m. Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
Voting is generally smooth in Indianapolis as Indiana experiences its first election as a swing state in a generation. Turnout, already bolstered by record numbers of early voting, is expected to be high.
“Turnout will be heavy,” said Angie Nussmeyer, Communications Specialist for the Marion County Clerk’s office. “As [Elizabeth White, Marion County Clerk,] has been saying, heavy early voting means heavy turnout on Election Day too.”
So far, the polls in Marion County have been handling the steady stream of voters. All precincts opened on time in Marion County, a stark improvement from 2006 when over 200 polling locations opened late. One precinct inspector even managed to open his polling site and deputize another pollworker before being rushed to the hospital for an undisclosed health issue. The polling site was able to open on time.
Though few major problems have been reported, like any election, the potential for problems is there.
In addition to the national attention on Indiana due to its status as a swing state, this election also marks the first presidential contest under the new voter identification law. While most voters at the polls this morning have been able to produce the required photo ID, others have had problems.
Around 6:30 am, a voter rushed home from his north side polling place after discovering that he had lost his driver’s license. He hoped to find it at home and still make it to the polling place before work.
Carl Motlow was not so optimistic. Motlow, a homeless resident of Indianapolis, tried to get a free state-issued ID card, but could not provide the necessary supportive documentation to get the ID. Despite having his voter registration card, Motlow knew he would not be permitted to vote.
“I just want to exercise my democratic right,” Motlow explained. “They don’t want me to vote.”
In Indiana, voters who are unable to provide ID are given the opportunity to cast a provisional ballot. Those voters must then show up to the County Clerk’s office within 10 days with the proper ID to have their ballot counted.
Even some voters who did have the proper ID found challenges voting.
Two Republican pollworkers had their status revoked and another left before attorneys from the Clerk’s office had the chance to speak with him.
At a polling site in Warren Township on the east side of Indianapolis, the Republican precinct clerk and challenger were both removed from their posts by attorneys from the Clerk’s office.
Nussmeyer said the two pollworkers were improperly challenging Democratic voters based solely on foreclosure information. Under the ruling of a recent case filed by the NAACP in Marion County, challengers may not use foreclosure lists as the sole basis for a challenge.
The issue was brought before the Marion County Election Board, comprised of one Democrat, one Republican and the County Clerk, and a unanimous decision was reached that the two were improperly issuing challenges and were engaging in voter intimidation.
Another Republican precinct challenger fled his polling site at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum before attorneys from the Clerk’s office could even speak with him. Reports came in to the Clerk’s office that he was challenging every single Democrat voter who came in to vote. When attorneys attempted to ask the pollworker for his name and pollworker identification information, he left the precinct and did not return.
“He may just not have understood the challenge process,” Nussmeyer said, “or he may have been doing it intentionally. We don’t know because he left.”
9:22 a.m. Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
Election Day opened with long lines, but few problems on an unseasonably warm day in central Indiana. After a disastrous 2006 general election in which over 200 precincts in Marion County opened late, County Clerk Elizabeth White reported that all Marion County precincts opened on time Tuesday morning.
Voters were in line as much as an hour before the polls opened at First Friends Meeting Church, one of the problemd locations from 2006. Indianapolis resident Russ Wulpert said he got in line around 5:30 a.m. and was the 14th voter to enter the polls when they opened at 6:00 am. Wulpert said the process was smooth, and reported no problems casting his vote.
Just down the street, first time voter Sherri Agnew also said her experience voting was quick and easy. Agnew arrived at her polling location, a Knights of Columbus hall on the north side of Indianapolis, around 6:30 a.m.and said she only waited for about five minutes. Agnew said she chose not to vote early because she wanted the experience of going to the polls. “This was my first time voting, and I wanted to vote on Election Day,” she said.
Agnew may have gotten lucky with the quick wait. Across Marion County, voters are experiencing longer than usual lines in the early morning voting rush. However, despite the lines, few major problems are being reported.
“We’re getting reports of some problems,” said Angie Nussmeyer, Communications Specialist for the Marion County Clerk’s office, “but it’s all just routine Election Day stuff.”
White echoed Nussmeyer’s assessment. “Our hotline workers are bored,” White said of the two rooms full of workers taking voter phone calls at the Clerk’s office, “and that’s what we like to see.”
There is a chance for some controversy later in the day, when absentee ballots are sent out to the precincts. In Indiana, all absentee ballots, whether cast by mail or in-person early voting, must be sent back to the precinct where the voter would have voted on Election Day to be counted.
A last minute law suit by the Marion County GOP challenged the manner in which White had instructed her poll workers to count challenged absentee ballots. White believed Indiana law stated that the precinct inspector, along with the two partisan precinct judges, should examine the ballots, and if the challenge is unanimously decided to be frivolous, the ballot should be counted.
The County GOP disagreed, arguing that all challenged absentee ballots should be considered provisional ballots. Provisional ballots must go to the County Elections Board, and, even if eventually found to be valid, are not counted until after Election Day. The GOP’s main argument rested on the fact that if a ballot is determined to be invalid at a later date, there is no way to “uncount” the vote at that time.
On Friday, a circuit court judge sided with the County GOP’s interpretation of Indiana law. On Monday, White appealed the ruling and was granted a stay by the Appellate Court, only to have that stay removed just hours later by the Indiana Supreme Court.
In response to the ruling, White sent out a notice with the delivery of the absentee ballots to all Marion County precincts instructing them to call into the Clerk’s office to receive further information on how to handle challenged absentee ballots.
Despite the legal controversy over the law suit, local election officials denied it would have much real affect on voters. “We just don’t get that many challenged ballots in Marion County,” Nussmeyer said.
Polls will be open until 6:00 pm in Indiana.
4:45 p.m., Monday, November 03, 2008
Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
Tomorrow will be the first presidential election for Hoosier voters under the new voter identification law. Though Marion County Clerk Elizabeth White does not anticipate any large-scale ID-related issues, with expectations for turnout very high in central Indiana, she understands that some voters may have problems.
“We need to do a better job of helping people make it through the [voting] process,” White said. She believes that local election officials should be proactive in how they approach ID-related issues.
“It’s not easy for everyone to get the kind of IDs needed,” White said. “Many people do not have the kind of supportive documents needed to get the IDs.” She said government agencies should work with people to help them get IDs when they lack the necessary supportive documents.
White also said local officials should expand their voter education programs. She said she has received several calls from voters who were denied the opportunity to vote early because they could not provide valid ID under Indiana’s law and believed they would not be able to vote.
“We need to do a better job helping people know what the remedies are,” White said.
White specifically mentioned one Marion County resident who lost her IDs recently when her purse was stolen. After White explained to the woman that she could use her passport to vote, the woman was relieved to know that she would be able to vote in Tuesday’s election.
Though the photo ID law has been in effect since 2006 in Indiana, White said many voters are still not familiar with the specifics of the law. She believes the state could do a better job of getting information to the voters regarding the legal requirements, and how voters who fail to provide ID at the polls can still have their vote counted.
“These voters have already gone through the polls with a negative experience,” White said, “we need to do a better job helping them through the process after Election Day is over.”
One innovative way to assist voters who lack ID parked itself across the street from the Marion County Clerk’s office on Monday. The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles’ BMV2YOU mobile unit has been visiting early voting sites across the state to provide on-the-spot service to Hoosier voters.
“We’ve been focusing on early voting locations, as well as places where people are not as mobile,” said Graig Lubsen, Deputy Communications Director for the Indiana BMV.
Just after 12:00 p.m. on Monday, Lubsen said the mobile BMV unit had already assisted four Marion County residents. In other places in the state, the number has been higher. In Zionsville, a small town just northwest of Indianapolis, Lubsen said the mobile unit had 37 transactions in a single day, while parked next to an early voting site.
The mobile unit has been traveling across Indiana since August of this year and has stopped at over 150 locations. “We even went up to South Bend to help the nuns who did not have photo ID in the primary,” Lubsen said.
The mobile unit will be at a polling site located on Butler University in Indianapolis on Election Day.
Polls will be open in Indiana from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. Voters who cannot provide ID at the polls will be allowed to fill out a provisional ballot, and will then have 10 days to present a valid ID at the County Clerk’s office in order to have their ballot counted.
11:45 a.m., Monday November 3
Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
Hoosier voters took full advantage of their last opportunity to vote early on Monday morning. The two and half hour line outside the Marion County Clerk’s office continued to be a leading story in this year’s election cycle for central Indiana.
Marion County Clerk Elizabeth White said that over 100,000 voters in Marion County had already either voted early or mailed in their absentee ballot. On Monday, she expects several more thousand to vote early in-person, along with a weekend’s worth of new absentee ballots.
Despite the staggering number of early voters, White said the process has been going as smoothly as possible. "Early voting has been very, very cordial," White said. "The only complaint was that we don’t have any port-o-lets outside."
White cautioned that Election Day could still be strenuous. She warns that voters should expect delays and long lines on Tuesday. Though all Marion County pollworkers have gone through orientation and training, White believes that high turnout will produce long lines, no matter how skilled the pollworkers are at moving voters through the process.
"Voters will need to be patient," White said. With thousands of new voters in the county, and new machines for seasoned voters, long lines may be inevitable.
Early voting will last through noon on Monday in Marion County. Like Election Day, all voters who are in line before noon will be allowed to vote.
Sunday, November 2
Indianapolis
Samuel Derheimer
The line to vote early wrapped around two and half city blocks at the Marion County Clerk’s Office in downtown Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon, Indiana’s last full day of early voting. Throughout the day, there was a fairly constant two and a half hour wait to vote.
For the first time, Marion County election officials offered two satellite early voting locations in addition to the clerk’s office. The lines at the two satellite locations were both around two hours long.
“The line looked a mile long,” Indianapolis resident Jeremy Boyens said of one of the satellite early voting locations. He came downtown, only to find the line at the clerk’s office was just as long, if not slightly longer.
Boyens said he voted early because he feared the lines will be even longer on Tuesday, and he did not vote by absentee because he did not want to risk losing his ballot in the mail.
Despite the long wait, Boyens said his experience voting early was very positive. Other voters agreed.
Angela Barnes likened her experience voting early to the credit card commercials where everyone moves in sync. “It went very smoothly,” she said. Barnes, a teacher in Indianapolis, said she voted early because it is hard to find time on a weekday to go vote because of her job. “Early voting gives you options, and that’s great,” she said. Barnes and her husband both believe that the expanded use of early voting in Marion County should be a permanent change to the election system. They believe that the high turnout at the early voting sites is evidence that expanding early voting is necessary.
In addition to the smooth process reported by voters, another explanation for satisfied voters despite the long lines in downtown Indianapolis may have been Gospel Fest. Local clergy leaders in Marion County organized gospel groups and church choirs to perform across the street from the clerk’s office to entertain the crowd.
Marion County Clerk Elizabeth White estimates that as many as 120,000 Marion County voters will vote early or vote by mail, a number that shatters previous early voting records in the county. Residents of Marion County will have one last chance to vote early on Monday, November 2 from 7:00 am to 12:00 pm.
New York
9 a.m. Village of Croton on Hudson, Town of Cortland, Westchester County
Rachel Leon
Voting in the small village of Croton on Hudson in the Municipal building (districts 7-39), turnout was brisk and there were lines, but the average wait this morning was only 15-20 minutes or so.
At 6 a.m. voters reported 30 people on line, the most they had seen as long as they could remember. By 8 a.m., more than 330 voters had voted. To give some perspective the village population is just under 8,000. There are 23,000 registered voters in Town of Cortland. There was only one lever machine for each district in the building, plus one optical scan machine that no one utilized while I was there.
A mailing from the Westchester Board of Election informed voters anyone could try the new op-scan system, but the mailing stated that votes would not be counted for 7 days because they would be centrally tabulated.
The lever machine jammed while I was on line to vote. Three poll workers went to get help, and one did something to the back of the machine that made it work again. The jam caused a delay of about 10 minutes. There did appear to be some confusion among poll workers at another table. They were arguing about what they should be doing and who was in charge as their line lengthened.
One poll worker who was opening the lever curtain for voters announced that they should be at counter 108, but somehow it was 109. But they let people keep voting. They usually hand out slips of papers with a number on it, but poll workers said they weren’t doing that today. They were keeping a handwritten list with a number next to each voter. There was also a voter not on the registration list who had to vote a paper ballot. He spoke to me outside the polling place after voting on paper and said this problem had already emerged at an earlier local election and should have been fixed by now. He said his son had moved and that his son was still on the list, but his name was gone. He said he would follow up with the Board of Elections.
The weather was beautiful, sunny and in the 50’s. Many families came together bringing small children into the lever booths with them. The crowd appeared more diverse than I had witnessed at previous elections. It’s a small village so I saw the family pediatrician, lots of neighbors and one of the village general doctors all vote in the hour and a half that I monitored. Parking was tough to find. Many people parked down the block.
A woman that appeared to be a volunteer who showed up on the steps of the building with a small cooler was on her cell phone stating that things looked good. Then she saw a voter leaving building with an Obama button and shouted out to her that she can’t wear that at polling site. The woman, who had already voted said she had taken it off inside when she voted. The sign on the municipal building said no loitering and no electioneering within 1,000 feet. All in all, brisk and happy crowd but the infrastructure of old and rusting lever machines, a non-working phone inside the site and some confused and flustered poll workers made it feel more like the 1970’s than 2008.
9 a.m. Park Slope, Brooklyn
Andrew Geraghty
Arriving at 8:00am, the site was quite busy with a line of roughly one hundred to one hundred and fifty people waiting outside of the building. It took me about 45 minutes to vote but according to voters who had used the site earlier in the morning wait times had been closer to an hour or more.
It was not until we actually made it into the building – after waiting online for 30 minutes- that we learned we could have skipped the line and gone straight to our district’s corresponding voting machine if we knew our district. Most people around me could have done this since they were carrying letters from the board of elections with their information on it. For those who did not know their district, there was a table set up where helpful poll workers could quickly direct you to the proper voting machine.
Each district had one machine. Lines for most machines had between twenty and thirty people and moved smoothly.
After voting I attempted to hang around and speak with some volunteer poll workers but was told by a board of elections official that I could not do this since I did not have prior authorization from the board.
Leaving the site around 8:45am, the line outside the building had shrunk to a handful of people, the morning rush was over.
8 a.m. Upper West Side of Manhattan
Nicole Gordon
I arrived at our local polling place at 5:50 a.m. There was already a line a half a block long. By 6 a.m., the line was a block long, but by the time the polls actually opened it appeared to move quickly. I had cast my vote (with my 13-yr.-old daughter) and was done by 6:30. At that point, the line was around the corner and about a block and a half long.
By 7:30 the line was snaking back and forth along the block, and by 9 am the wait just to get into the building was 1 hr. and 15 minutes. The significance of this is that the UWS is traditionally a very high turnout and very efficient voting district. The voting itself continued to operate efficiently, but I have never seen--nor have many older neighbors I talked to who have voted in this area for decades--lines like this.
The voters, poll workers, and passers-by seemed unanimously to be patient, encouraging, and deeply moved to be a part of this extraodinary show of commitment in this year's exercise in American democracy.
10 a.m. Highland Park, Middlesex County
Bharathi Sundaram
Voting at the Congregation Ohavemeth Synagogue in Highland Park in Middlesex County, New Jersey was going smoothly as of 9 am this morning.
One of the poll workers shared her experiences from earlier this morning. The workers had arrived at 5:15 am to begin set up. Set up went smoothly and they had no problems opening at 6:00 am (polls are open in New Jersey from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.). The poll worker attributed the quick set up to the experience and knowledge of the poll workers. She herself is a state employee who has been a poll worker for over twenty years, and her son was also serving as a poll worker for the same district.
The poll worker said that voters began lining up to vote from approximately 5.40 am. The rush lasted until about 7:15 a.m.. There was another rush 8:10-8.30 a.m.. She anticipates that there will be heavier voter traffic again beginning at 4:00 pm and that around 6:00-7:00 pm there may be difficulty finding parking spaces.
The poll worker also noted that she was pleased to see that there have been many young, first-time voters this morning. First-time voters at the polling place were asked to provide a form of identification only if the poll book indicated that they had not done so prior to Election Day. Otherwise only a signature was needed.
The polling place covered four districts in the town of Highland Park: Districts 7, 8, 9, and 13. There were approximately four to five poll workers per district—one at the voting machine booth and the remainder at the table—and one booth per district. Several of the districts had no voters waiting at all and the longest line that developed had six people. There was no line at my district’s table when I arrived and the voting process, involving a signature in the poll book at check-in, was straightforward. A woman next to me was unsure of her district, and a poll worker was able to check the poll book and direct her to the correct district table. According to the voting equipment inventory list on the New Jersey Board of Elections Web site, Middlesex County uses the AVC Advantage (Sequoia Pacific) electronic voting system.
Signs at the polling place, in English and Spanish, included the following: a “Vote Here” sign posted on outside of the front door, information about voter rights and disability access on the inside of the front door, and instructions on how to vote or transfer registration at each district table. The front door also had a sign stating, “No electioneering within 100 feet.”
Prior to Election Day, on October 30th, I received an official general election sample ballot in English and Spanish which included my district, polling location, instructions for voting, and voting rights information.
Voting at the same location on February 5th around 7 am for the 2008 primary election was similarly quick and straightforward, taking less than five minutes. In contrast, voting in Arlington County, Virginia during the 2004 general elections required a three-hour wait in line from approximately 7 am to 10 am.
3:33 p.m., Saturday November 1
North Carolina Central University (NCCU) campus on Allston Avenue in Durham
Kat Zambon
The combination of NCCU's homecoming game against Edward Waters College and steady turnout for early voting led to traffic and overflowing parking lots at NCCU but William Polk, a volunteer said that they had shorter lines than other sites in Durham. "It's been a steady flow all afternoon, not long lines," he said including young and old, African-American, Hispanic and white voters.
"I want more voters," Nicole Rowan, poll supervisor said. "We're prepared for a line out to there," she said, pointing to the parking lot.
The football game added to the atmosphere at the polls, Rowan said. "It's fun, it kind of keeps our spirits up," she said. "We've had football players, we've had cheerleaders, we've had it all." Poll workers clapped after first-time poll workers cast their ballots. Zeenalyn Williams, a registered nurse who brought her four year-old daughter Lynette with her received applause after she registered and voted at the same time. Williams was pleased with her experience. "It went well. It was easier than I thought," she said.
Arthur Affleck, an attorney watching the polls said that he had seen several older first-time voters cast ballots such as Mrs. James, a 95 year-old African-American woman who had picked cotton in South Carolina when she was younger. Mrs. James faced challenges obtaining the identification she needed to vote and then encountered lines at the polls but she persisted, Affleck said. "She voted and she had tears in her eyes," he said. "It was just kind of heartwarming ... I think that story is being repeated" around the state.
Affleck said that he was impressed with the perseverance of voters. "I must say ... people are going out of their way to vote and register" and voters return after they're turned away, he said, even when they've received confusing information. Affleck said voters told him they received robo-calls and mailings that said early voting was over and it's too late to vote. Polk heard some voters say they received flyers that said they can vote online at the library.
"I just hope my vote counts. A lot of people have concerns about early voting," Latonya Villines said. Affleck's barber didn't trust early voting until Affleck explained it. "There are a lot of protections in place" but people hear about problems in other areas and think it happens everywhere, he said.
In addition to cast ballots, several voters left behind personal belongings such as driver's licenses, Social Security cards and cell phones. Rowan said one voter left his wallet at the polls for a week before retrieving it. Any items left at the polls will be returned to the board of elections, she added.
12:00 p.m., Saturday November 1
Morehead Planetarium on E. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill on the UNC campus
Kat Zambon
Late Saturday morning, the line of early voters outside of the Wake County Board of Elections wrapped around the corner while Orange County voters in Chapel Hill barely had to wait at all. "I'm supposed to shoot pictures of long lines but there aren't any," a photographer for a local daily paper complained. Many voters leaving said that they waited about five minutes to vote.
Unlike nearby Wake and Durham counties, Orange County did not extend early voting hours to 5 p.m. , confusing one voter. She said she heard news about the extension, which was on the front page of The News and Observer, and thought she had more time to vote until a campaign volunteer knocked on her door and told her that the early voting hours in Orange County had not changed.
At about 12:45 p.m., a line with about 20 voters formed. "This line was not here until the last 15 minutes," a poll worker said, validating the decision not to keep polls open longer. Almost all of the privacy booths were full and one voter filled out a ballot in the window sill.
Sara Biggers, a local attorney volunteering for the Orange County Democratic Party said that she thought that most of the students voted earlier so they could celebrate Halloween and sleep in on Saturday. The line ballooned late in the day on Friday but it "moved quickly and people waited. I was impressed," she said. Biggers began volunteering in front of the planetarium when early voting began on October 16 and saw a similar spike in student participation earlier in the week on Monday, October 27 when students returned from fall break. The people voting at the polls were roughly one-third local residents and two-thirds students, she said.
Biggers commended the work of Tracy Reams, Orange County election director, and her poll workers. "It was very fast," Diane Covington, a physician's assistant said, and "people were very pleasant." "I was probably in there five minutes total," Andy Blackmore, a music student said, "and everyone in there was very friendly."
From behind the 50-foot border between voters and campaign workers, volunteers encouraged voters to recycle their sample ballots. Both volunteers and poll workers reminded straight-ticket voters to mark their ballot for president.
Brendan Murphy, an international finance director, let his young daughter color in the lines on his ballot. "I told her I'd tell her later about how historic this is," he said. Lisa Walter, a business manager for a photography studio also brought her daughter, Grayson to the polling place for the first time. Grayson Walter was surprised to see paper ballots instead of electronic voting machines but her mother said that she had changed her registration address but didn't experience any problems.
Between the short wait time and the sun shining outside, "it felt like a good day," Valerie Meicher, who works in human resources for the town of Chapel Hill said. "A good day to vote."
2:02 p.m., Friday October 31
Cary Towne Center Mall (on Walnut Street in Cary)
Kat Zambon
The polling place in the Cary Towne Center Mall was next to the Lens Crafters on one end but the 200 or so voters waiting in line reached all the way past the Gymboree. Jeff Crouse, a musician said he got in line at about 12:30 p.m. and that it took him about 45 minutes to get through to vote. "The line went really fast. It was really organized in the room," he said, adding that he heard it could take five hours to vote there on Tuesday. Another voter looked at the line and said, "It's got to be better than voting on Tuesday."
"It was scary, the length of it. It started all the way down there," Bob Morain, a technical writer said. "They could use some more air conditioning in there," he said. Donna Morain agreed but she was not dismayed by the wait. "Even though there's an incredible amount of people the wait was fine."
Dee, a customer service representative who preferred not to give her last name said she waiting for about two hours to vote after getting in line at 10:15 a.m. A transplant from Ohio, Dee was surprised that she needed to present more identification, having arrived at the polls with her old Ohio driver's license and new North Carolina voter registration card but she found a utility bill in her car and poll workers allowed her to vote without waiting in line again. "I wish I had come a week earlier so I wouldn't have had to wait but I enjoyed this."
Several voters waiting in line read books or chatted on cell phones. After voting, many gathered around the entrance to the polls, waiting for friends or family members. Parents held hands with children in Halloween costumes. Some would-be voters walked away after seeing the line's length. When asked if she had voted, one woman replied, "Oh no, I couldn't stand in that line. I'll come back in the morning."
Michelle Brunecz, a federal government worker said it took her about an hour to register and vote after she got in line at 11:30 a.m. She heard some voters say they voted on Monday and were in and out of the polling place within minutes while another voter complained that they needed to be downtown in 15 minutes. "Everything was very fast, even though the line looked long," she said.
According to their Web site, the Wake County Board of Elections voted unanimously in an October 31 meeting to extend early voting hours to 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 1 at all 15 early voting locations. All voters in line at 5 p.m. will be allowed to cast ballots.
11:42 a.m., Friday October 31
Wake County Board of Elections (on W. Salisbury in Raleigh)
Kat Zambon
"This is the best kept secret in Raleigh," Leon Barber, site supervisor said while his colleagues welcomed and processed voters. "We're very busy," he said, but not as busy as some of the other early voting sites. "Some of the malls, they say there's a two hour wait-- the malls are packed apparently."
A short line of people moved quickly through the site. Out of about 25 privacy booths, maybe eight were unused at any given time. The counter on the optical-scan indicates that 13,204 voters had come in so far. Of those, Barber estimated that less than 500 voters registered to vote on site.
The mood at the board of elections was generally upbeat. Voters smiled to each other on their way out and thanked the poll workers for their service. "Couldn't have been any simpler, could it?" one voter said while exiting the polls. "I've had no complaints, lots of compliments," Barber said. "No really moody people, no one complaining about waiting in line."
"I thought I was going to wait for a long time and I didn't," Thomas Sutton, a computer programmer who works in North Raleigh said.
It doesn't hurt that poll workers were bending over backwards to help voters. When one voter arrived at the polls with her yellow Labrador retriever, Jersey and began tying Jersey's leash to a tree, Lavongue Manley, a poll worker offered to hold Jersey's leash while the owner voted. "This has been a great experience," Lloyd Moore, a first time poll worker said, because he's happy to help so many people.
Patricia Marion, a voter who brought her granddaughter to the polls in a stroller said she liked the optical-scan system better than the old lever machines. "It didn't take too long, they have a good process. That's a good thing and it's a good thing there are so many people voting."
9:30 p.m. Cuyahoga County
Sean Greene
The county had the majority of absentee ballots, about 200,000, tabulated by 8 p.m. Soon after these totals came out, elections director Jane Platten spoke to the press and declared the day a success.
“We have had an excellent day today. Poll workers administered an accurate and efficient election. We had no litigation, no lawsuits.”
She added considering how many technology and procedure changes have taken place in Cuyahoga County elections, it is impressive how well today’s vote went.
Poll workers were reconciling ballots at the polls and Platten predicted they would start seeing the ballots come in to the board around 9:30 p.m.
7:30 p.m. Cuyahoga County
Sean Greene
Polls are just closing across the Buckeye State and in Cuyahoga County no reports of legal action to keep any polls open beyond 7:30 p.m. as has been the case in at least two elections since 2004.
At the Parma Heights Garage, a polling place I have visited in three previous elections, the polls were not that busy at 6:30 p.m. Jim, a poll worker said it was much busier first thing in the morning.
About one hundred people came in the first rush of voters he said at the multi-precinct polling site. He added two people were there 45 minutes before he got to the polls at 5:30 a.m. All in all, he was pleased with what he saw, and felt voters did well dealing with their third voting technology in three consecutive general elections.
"A pretty normal day. People rolled with the punches."
He added one interesting story. A woman from New Jersey was in town visiting a friend and came in and wanted to vote. He said he appreciated her enthusiasm but explained she needed to vote in her home state.
At the Ernest Bohn Tower, only two voters were casting ballots. The day had been busier earlier a poll worker explained- many of the voters are residents of the building.
I am now sitting at the Board of Elections warehouse where the vote tabulation happens and election workers wait for the ballots to come in.
Summary of the 4 p.m press briefing from the county elections director Jane Platten:
- • Voters should expect more lines starting around 5 p.m. with the post-work rush. Platten speculated early voting - 270,000 out of 1.1 million registered voters cast ballots before election day - in the county might have led to slower times at some polls after the morning rush .
- • The vote after the morning rush was slow but steady. No major problems reported. Some minor problems.
- • In Shaker Heights several voters were only given one page of what is a two-page ballot.
- • Some poll workers were unclear on the fact that a driver's license with an old address that has not expired is still a valid ID at the polls and a voter can use it and cast a regular ballot.
- • They have not received any calls about ill-prepared poll workers.
- • The average age of poll workers this election is 55, down from 72 in 2004. This average does not include high school poll workers.
- • Election observers have been helpful and cooperative. They have people stationed at the polls as well as the first floor of the office and are in constant continuation with the board of elections.
- • The board of elections has been making several calls to all polling places today as issues from a few polling places have come up - the ID questions, the two-page ballot. This year is the first year they have been doing this all polling place communication.
2:30 p.m. Cuyahoga County
Sean Greene
Here is a quick update from Mike West, a spokesman for the board of elections. Mike relayed information to me that county elections director Jane Platten gave during a 10 a.m. media briefing at the board of elections office:
- • There were issues with 25 precinct scanners. Twenty could be fixed almost immediately and five were replaced.
- • All poll locations opened on time.
- • 123 poll workers were replaced last night and 50 more were replaced this morning. This is out of a total of approximately 7,000 poll workers.
- • They have generally heard reports of most polling places running smoothly.
There will be another media briefing at 3:45 p.m. and I will update with additional information then if warranted and then back out to polling places for the evening rush.
1 p.m. Cuyahoga County
Sean Greene
In Euclid poll worker Donna Benton spoke of being “bum rushed” by voters in the morning. At her polling place in the Euclid Public Library things had slowed down, though, by 10:30 a.m.
Her precinct, the largest of the three at the polling place, had nearly 200 voters cast ballots by this time.
One voter had come to the wrong polling place and was directed to the correct one by poll workers.
In Lyndhurst at the community center, voters were having a good time reconnecting.
“It’s so good to see all the neighbors,” said a group of three women. At 11:15 a.m., the polling place was not that crowded and voters did not face lines.
“I was in and out. Done in five minutes tops,” said voter Ed Lauge. “Everything seemed very streamlined.”
He added he was glad to cast his ballot on paper. He had last voted on punch-card ballots. He had also heard of problems with electronic voting machines in other states showing the wrong votes and was glad he did not have to face that.
At the Orange Town Hall around noon things were fairly calm as well. But the morning was a different story according to poll worker David Paulus.
“We were swarmed. People were waiting to vote at 6 a.m.”
Paulus said they gave people clipboards to vote on when all the privacy booths were in use and that helped keep the process moving.
Chad and Matt, two high school poll workers were enjoying their day greeting people and directing them to the correct precinct. They also pointed out to me how at 11 a.m. they had posted for everyone to see the marked precinct rosters noting who had voted up until that point.
9:40 a.m. Cuyahoga County
Sean Greene
At 6:10 a.m. at Trinity Commons next to the Trinity Church in downtown Cleveland, eight people waited to cast their ballots.
Jimmy Leslie was the first to complete his ballot, and it was his first in years. He arrived early in hopes of avoiding lines. He knew he was still registered because he said he had received an absentee ballot application in the mail that he hadn’t had the chance to fill out.
“I can’t remember the last time I voted. This election got me excited. I hope I know I’m going to know how to use the machine,” he said referring to the precinct-based optical scan paper ballots in use for the first time in the county.
Inside the polling place, which contained one precinct, were seven poll workers, eight privacy booths for voters to fill out their paper ballots and one optical scan machine for voters to feed their ballots into. One table was set up for checking in and receiving ballots and another table was set up to handle provisional ballots. (No provisional ballots were cast of the 12 voters I saw cast votes in the first 20 minutes after the polls opened.) I was told by poll workers they had 1,230 ballots on hand.
After voters completed their ballots, they returned to the main table where they tore off stubs from the ballot to give to a poll worker and then fed their ballots into the scanner. One voter had to feed his ballot in five times before it was accepted.
There was also one Democratic observer in the polling place as well as one Voting Rights Staff person outside the polls asking people how their voting process went and if they had any questions. (In the four polling places I have been so far today, there has been at least one voting rights staff member outside and in three of the four there has been a Democratic observer.)
Another voter was a bit confused having not voted since punch cards were in use in 2004 but poll workers were able to quickly help him.
After he voted, Leslie was pleased. “It was easier than I thought it would be. I liked it better than voting on a machine.”
The lines were much longer in the Collinwood Branch of the Cleveland Public Library at 8 a.m. I estimated at least 60 people in line, two or three of whom said they had been waiting for over an hour.
The lines were not entirely surprising as the room where voting was taking place was very small, with eight privacy booths set up and not much more room for anything else besides the check-in tables and the optical scanner.
However, voters did not express frustration.
“The line was long and my back was hurting, but it was fine. I had to make sure I filled out everything correctly,” said Pamela Watkins.
Percy McDade agreed.
“Yes it was a long wait, about an hour, but no complaints. I liked voting on paper better than a computer too.”
A few minutes later, an election day rover from the board of elections office came by with three clipboards to give the poll workers there so voters could use those to cast ballots as well in hopes of alleviating the lines.
The lines at the Memorial School were also long I was told when the polls opened. A poll worker named Willie said that when he arrived at 5:30, an hour before polls opened, there were 20 people waiting outside.
A visually impaired man used audio prompts on a ballot-marking device to cast his ballot in privacy.
One complication was the provisional ballots. Poll worker Sue Helper said 23 had been cast so far and it was a complicated process. “It can take more than five minutes with several places to sign.” She was concerned that poll workers would make an error filling them out, not the voters.
3:30 p.m., Monday November 3
Cuyahoga County Board of Elections office
Sean Greene
A large line wrapped around the block on the last day of in-person absentee voting in Cuyahoga County. Traffic near the downtown Cleveland office was blocked off and extra satellite parking lots were opened.
And while heavy rain started to pour (parts of the line were under a tent, but those in the back half were exposed to the elements) most of those in line appeared undaunted. Several local candidates were out speaking with voters as were supporters of Sen. Barack Obama (D) and at least one voting rights advocate asking voters how the voting process went.
When the line reached inside the building it wrapped around inside the front lobby one more time until people were able to enter a room to sign in and cast paper ballots. The ballots were then deposited by the voter in a large box clearly labeled ballot box in capital letters.
Kim Bartlett of the board of elections office said they have seen a heavy turnout for early voting that had especially ramped up since Saturday. Nearly 250,000 ballots, out of approximately 1.1 million registered voters, have been cast before Election Day in the county either by mail or in person .
Allison Lightbody of Cleveland Heights was voting early because she had to work tomorrow. She waited in line for an hour but was not bothered.
“It was easy. It was well-organized.”
Latoya Tanker agreed, saying the experience was easy and not stressful. She also liked casting a paper ballot.
“I like not having to worry about the computer,” she said, referring the touch-screen voting machines that were in use in the county in 2006.
In-person voting ends tonight at 7:00 p.m. and the polls open tomorrow at 6:30 a.m.
7:50 p.m. Church of the Nativity
Dan Seligson
Voting is done for the day. The door is open, but that’s about it. The tape holding the signs to the brick wall is beginning to sag and some of the political signs have fallen down, perhaps making the clean-up job a little easier.
In the quieter corners of Pittsburgh, this election is over. The clock will agree in about 10 minutes.
7:40 p.m. Greenfield Senior Center
Dan Seligson
None of the three voting machines are in use. Poll workers are watching the clock. Not much longer for them.
7:30 p.m. Colfax Elementary School
Dan Seligson
While the morning might have seen significant crowds, the last-minute rush never materialized in this precinct, which typically has heavy turnout.
1:30 p.m. University of Pittsburgh campus, Oakland neighborhood
Daniel Seligson
Polling places on and near the campus are packed during what is traditionally a down time for voting.
Students waited in lines for 90 minutes or more at Wesley Posvar Hall. With multiple precincts, wait time depended largely upon your student housing location. Those who lived in the Towers – home to many freshmen – had the longest wait. And woe to those within the precinct whose last names began with a letter early in the alphabet; the “A-D” line was four times as long as any other.
Krystal, a poll watcher, said some of the groups observing the vote lobbied for a change in the alphabet breaks to shorten the lines, but as of early afternoon, nothing had yet been done.
She also said a number of voters, many of whom were new registrants and first-time voters, found that they were not on the rolls. Some cast provisional ballots; though at least one voter was told he could not cast one.
Student volunteers for campaigns said that Pitt students who came to the university from out of state had been encouraged to register to vote in Pennsylvania using their college address as their residence. That certainly has contributed to the lines and the large number of new voters.
The voting machines had few, if any, reported problems. A slow start up on a few machines in the precinct had been corrected and they were functioning smoothly. In fact, the long lines at the registration table did not extend to the banks of voting machines. Many sat idle despite the crowds nearby.
So far, the emergency paper ballots available in Allegheny have not been tapped in the six precincts visited thus far.
That has not been the case throughout the county. According to press reports, polling places in two areas of the county resorted to emergency paper ballots when machines did not work when polls opened.
The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall had lines stretching the length of extended hallways and around the corner. Volunteers handed out water and bags of chips and pretzels. Nearby residents and students both vote at the polling place, which had only two registration lines and waits approaching two hours.
Many students said they were skipping class. A poll worker who has been at the same polling place for years said the lines were much longer than he had previously witnessed, and turnout was already approaching that seen during the entire 13-hour voting period in 2004.
While the doors will be locked promptly at 8 p.m., anyone waiting in line will be able to cast a ballot.
In 2004, that meant this polling place still had voters casting ballots until nearly 11 p.m. This year, with some students walking away to make it to classes vowing to come back later and residents usually waiting until after work to cast votes, it could be as late or later before it shuts down.
10:15 a.m. East Liberty, Pittsburgh
Daniel Seligson
Election Protection volunteers are out in force in the neighborhood, with at least one volunteer in three polling sites visited.
Most voters have been asked if they have had problems as they leave polling sites, and most reported having none.
Sylvia Wilson, waiting outside of the Pentecostal Temple, a small polling site with three machines, said everything had been going smoothly. A steady stream of voters came and went during a 20-minute period, with few taking much longer than five or 10 minutes to vote.
At the much larger polling site down the street at the Kingsley Community Center (five precincts are housed there), a volunteer observer said a few voters said their names were not on the rolls. Some, he said, missed the registration deadline.
Ora Lee Carroll, a 42-year resident of the East Liberty neighborhood, said she while was concerned about the lack of a paper trail with the county’s touch-screen voting system, she thought the new machines were particularly easy for seniors to use.
“It’s much better technology,” she said.
8:15 a.m. Mount Lebanon Township
Daniel Seligson
The conversations at Coffee Tree Roasters in downtown Mt. Lebanon have not focused on who people voted for, but rather how long it took.
At the Markham School, it has taken a while.
Steve Silverman, an official poll watcher, said none of the three voting machines for Ward 3 were operating when polls opened at 7 a.m. He asked the poll judge to use emergency paper ballots – on hand in Allegheny if half of the voting machines in a precinct do not function – but the request was refused.
By 7:15 a.m., two of three machines were on line and lines started moving.
Cynthia, who has voted for 20 years in Mt. Lebanon, said she didn’t notice any problems
“It wasn’t that bad. Honestly, we never have a line here at all,” she said.
While she said the machine she used performed well, she missed the privacy of the previous system.
“I miss the curtain,” she said. “They know who you voted for. If you take too long, they come over and ask you if you need help and could see who you’re voting for.”
7:30 a.m. Baker Elementary School, Upper St. Clair
Daniel Seligson
Voters in this suburb south of Pittsburgh started lining up at the polls before 6:30 a.m. Alisa James, who said she is almost always “first in line” on Election Day took second this year.
Sherry, a woman she referred to as “her voting buddy” stood first outside the multipurpose room as poll workers rushed around to make final preparations, including running to a car trunk to get cushions for hard metal chairs.
Voting started as the clock struck 7 a.m., almost to the second. All of the machines in the polling place, which houses two voting precincts were operating, a departure from the primary when James said at least one was down when polls opened.
She had high praise for the long-time staff.
“These poll workers know what they’re doing,” James said.
The parking lot of the school was full by 7:20 a.m., with voters circling for spaces. Schools throughout the county are closed to students, though Baker has some staff on hand for parent-teacher conferences.
The line at the door stood at about 30-40 for each precinct and it appeared to take each voter about 25 minutes from the time they arrived at the polls until the time they completed casting the ballot.
Mary Kirk, who voted elsewhere in Upper St. Clair, said she was in and out of her polling place in 15 minutes.
“Everyone was wonderful and happy,” she said. “Seamless – from check-in to voting.”
Much longer lines have been reported elsewhere in Allegheny
1:30 p.m., Monday November 3
Pittsburgh
Daniel Seligson
For an election office the day before potentially the highest turnout election in decades, it’s awfully quiet at the Allegheny County Elections Division on the 6th floor of the county building on Forbes Avenue.
Workers seated at desks were sequencing and time stamping absentee enveoples to be opened after the polls close.
Others prepared stacks of maps as well as a thick stapled list of all of the polling places in the county – every jurisdiction from Aleppo Township to Wilmerding.
In a state where only those with valid excuses can cast absentee votes – and early voting is not offered – the action will be limited to a 13-hour voting period tomorrow.
Not all the desks were occupied, however, and most in the office were extremely responsive and helpful to the campaign volunteers, reporters and others who walked in and to the election counter.
In fact, it seemed downright calm in there.
Tomorrow should be an entirely different story.
7:00 p.m. Fairfax County Government Center
Alysoun McLaughlin
Scattered applause breaks out across the office as the polls close in Fairfax County. A late shift of Girl Scouts has arrived to assist in taking calls with unofficial returns from the polls. Downstairs, the Boy Scouts are preparing to assist in the return of ballots and equipment.
There is no line at the polling location downstairs, nor are there reports from the field of the morning's lines having prsisted into the evening. Wherever there are voters remaining in line, poll workers are writing down the names of those who are waiting and entitled to vote before the poll close; once the poll workers have finished with any remaining voters, they will officially close the polls and initiate a shutdown of the DREs and optical scanners. Each machine will generate a printout that will be delivered here along with the memory cards, paper ballots and precinct lists later tonight. First, however, poll workers will need to remove the paper ballots from the ballot box and conduct a manual count of write-in votes cast.
5:28 p.m., St. Michael's Lutheran Church (on Merrimack Road in Blacksburg)
Kat Zambon
Traffic slowed to a stop approaching the polls as Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) employees directed cars into the parking lot. The scene looked more like a tailgate party than a polling place as voters parked cars on the lawn behind the church and played music from their cars.
Linda Ayers, a volunteer for the Obama campaign came from Arlington to bring food and water and found that there was no one helping people park cars so she started pointing drivers to available parking spaces in the field. "I've never parked vehicles before. This is my big day," she said. "I wasn't trained for this." A woman with a baby in a stroller complained to Ayers that she was blocked in and couldn't leave.
Hundreds of students waited in line while volunteers handed out drinks, snacks, pizza, Sudoku games and crossword puzzles, encouraging them to stay. "We're doing this to make sure people don't leave because we want them to vote regardless of who they're voting for," Jessica Pringle, a Blacksburg High School student said.
"Anyone need food? We are so sorry about the wait, thank you so much for staying," a volunteer said, handing out bags of chips.
"The passing the food around made it go faster but it also made us hungry," Kelsey Skillman, an economics major said. Skillman got in line at about 4:10 p.m. and voted by 5:30 p.m. "We are happy people, we voted already," she said, though Skillman said her friend had to vote provisionally.
"Do we have spirit at Virginia Tech?" someone cheered as students responded in the affirmative before singing the Hokie Pokey. "We're in the home stretch, everybody!" another voter said.
Sandra Bloom, an English major held a sign that said, "VT = 4 precincts?" "Basically anywhere except here is not having problems," she said. "It's ridiculous because this is five miles away from dorms."
Phil DeVerna, an engineering major near the front of the line said he had been waiting since 4:30 p.m. "It was under control until about 4 p.m.," another voter said. "I just think people got out of class at 3:00 p.m. and came here," Skillman said.
Anthony Needham, an attorney with the Obama campaign helped voters fill out incident reports describing problems they encountered in the polls. Some students said they registered to vote in Blacksburg but poll workers said they were registered at precincts in their hometowns, even though they had never been registered to vote at home.
Trung Le, a chemical engineering major told Needham that he registered to vote on campus but poll workers said he was registered at his home in Springfield. Needham asked him to fill out an incident report. "I'm sorry that happened to you, thanks for coming out," he said.
When pizzas arrived, controversy followed. An Obama volunteer said students were not allowed to hand pizza to voters within 40 feet of the polls. "What if they have low blood sugar? Do you want them to pass out?" a girl complained. "Do you want me to get my mom on the phone? My mom is one of the most powerful lawyers in North Carolina."
Amanda Eckerson from Rock the Vote passed a red t-shirt to the last voter in line. "Who's got the red shirt? Woo!" she said. A student filled out a form that said she was unable to vote because she could not wait in line.
Ray Roberts, a Republican poll watcher said that poll workers were able to process about 350-400 voters an hour. With more than 5,000 registered voters in the precinct, poll workers were simply overwhelmed, he said, though all voters in line at 7 p.m. will be able to vote.
"The real problem is under-planning," Bill Kovarik, a journalism professor said. "I would say that the university students in this precinct are feeling pretty put out."
Hugh Gallagher, a voting machine custodian for Montgomery County said that even though there were more than 5,000 registered voters in the precinct, the electoral board was unable to divide it into two smaller precincts because Virginia is covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, requiring them to seek pre-clearance from the Department of Justice before they are allowed to make any changes. "The electoral board and registrar have done a good job" in a tough situation, he said.
"They really need to control the student body" and give students a polling place on campus," Roberts said.
As the clock neared 7 p.m., the close of the polls in Virginia, rumors spread through the crowd that voters who were in their cars attempting to park would be allowed to vote. "If people will trust you, tell them you will park their cars," one Obama volunteer said to another.
Poll workers asked voters with last names that started with the letters H through O to move to the front of the line. "Follow the girl with the boom box," Eckerson said. Max Hockenbury, a chemistry major said, "I got jumped to the front of the line because I'm H through O so that was pretty nice."
"I brought people here who've been waiting for two hours and 20 minutes and they're still here" waiting in line, Lauren McDowell, an exercise and nutrition major said.
The line appeared to shrink as the minutes ticked away but Needham said that poll workers simply pushed all of the voters inside the polling place. "They're squeezed in there like sardines," he said. "They suddenly opened up a chapel that wasn't open before" so about 650 voters waited inside, Eckerson said.
"The polls will close in two minutes," a poll worker beckoned with a bullhorn. "You have to be in line here at 7 p.m."
A poll worker prepared to make a list of voters in line to vote at 7 p.m. to ensure latecomers didn't sneak in. A would-be voter got to the door just as a poll worker announced, "The polls are officially closed." "Does that mean I can't vote?" he said. Campaign volunteers nodded.
A group of young women from Virginia Tech's a cappella group wearing green hooded sweatshirts gathered near the front of the polls and began singing "It's Raining Men." "If they ever have a concert I'll have to go," a volunteer said. The male a cappella group responded with a song of their own while Eckerson encouraged them to hold a Rock the Vote vigil for the voters still in line.
Aman Buhler, a university studies major got in line at 6:50 p.m. and left the polls at 8:20 p.m. "It was way crowded. It's my first time voting" but she remembered voting with her mother when she was younger.
Volunteers helped student voters find transportation back to campus and police asked voters to move their cars if they parked on Merrimac Road so the workers from VDOT could leave. Eric Wolf, a wildlife biologist voted in the afternoon but met his wife in the evening so they could take their four young children in to vote. The children waited three hours with Wolf and his wife, who entertained them with drawing and connect the dots.
"What are you going to say when people ask where you were?" Wolf said to his seven year-old son Jeremiah. "I was there," he answered.
"Daddy, did I break the law? I voted for Mommy," Wolf's son Jeremiah said. Wolf explained that that was okay.
Ravi Dahiya, a computer science major was the last voter to cast a ballot at St. Michael's at about 8:30 p.m. after waiting for about an hour and a half. "I think it was worth it … I was overwhelmed," he said, "but I was determined to vote.
2:50 p.m. Fairfax County Government Center
Alysoun McLaughlin
The rhythm of the office has settled down into a steady simmer, as staff chase down rumors of malfunctioning voting equipment and misbehaving poll workers. I spent my afternoon serving as a courier, running slips of paper from one end of the office to another with reports from political parties, candidates, the media and election protection groups listing he names of precincts and notes on rumors of equipment being down, or poll workers denying voters the opportunity to cast a provisional ballot or not speaking loud enough for poll watchers to hear. Virginia hs a special ballot containing only federal races that may be cast by a few voters under special circumstances, and this morning there were a few incidents of poll workers calling in a panic that they had erroneously set up a voter to cast that ballot on a DRE (when not caught until after the fact, the Registrr's office advised poll workers to allow the voter to cast a provisional ballot for the remaining questions on the ballot).
At the 'machine call center' in a corner office, staff are answering calls from poll workers about problems operating their voting equipment and dispatching rovers to assist. On on wall, a projector displays their newest tool - a web-based map showing the GPS location of each of 18 rovers in the field.
1:45 p.m. Blacksburg Area Branch Library (on Miller Street in Blacksburg)
Kat Zambon
Traffic was significantly lighter during the afternoon than it had been in the morning when "everybody said, 'I'm going to get there before everyone else,'" as Greg Valatka, a campaign volunteer for McCain put it. "They wanted to get here before the crowds and they created a crowd," he said.
"This is quite different from this morning," another volunteer said, while a voter on a bicycle rode around the parking lot and asked, "How come there's no line?"
With fewer voters to tend to, volunteers made small talk about the weather and what they had seen earlier in the day. Valatka recalled a voter who got out of his car and kicked an Obama sign. Thinking he was a McCain supporter, Valatka said, "Dude, that's not cool." "He started saying McCain's a such and such … I said, dude, I think you kicked the wrong sign," Valatka said, noting that all of the campaign signs are blue.
"There's a wonderful energy, people are just happy," Jana Ruble, a volunteer for a school board candidate said, except for some voters who are too nervous about the results. "It's kind of a high feeling, like there's something special happening," she said. "It's not long lines here right now but people are energized."
Ruble voted at Margaret Beeks Elementary School where a volunteer helped make sure she was in the right line to vote. She was impressed to see voters with severe disabilities exercising their right to vote, particularly one who could barely use her walker. "She was so determined," Ruble said.
Early afternoon voters were in and out of the library within minutes. "I was ready to complain if I needed to but I didn't need to," John Howell, a teacher at Virginia Tech said after voting. "I walked right up, there was no line at all," Jeffrey Stewart, a meteorologist said. "It was a lot quicker than what I expected," Dan Rieck, an engineering major at Virginia Tech said.
An election protection volunteer from the Obama campaign asked voters, "Y'all have any trouble voting?" When a first-time voter approached Valatka and said he never received his voter registration card, he was swarmed by bored campaign volunteers.
Robby Schmidt and Mason Owen, both students at Virginia Tech were pleased with their experiences. "It's kind of like placing an order at Sheetz," Owen said. "I don't see how anyone could possibly mess that up."
It was almost too simple for Graham Doeren, a history and political science major, who said he kept checking his ballot to ensure that he had completed it correctly. Doeren was mad after the 2004 presidential election because he turned 18 years old days after the election.
Similarly Kevin Williamson, a political science and legal studies major said he just missed participating in the 2004 presidential election. "I missed it last time by like four months so it's kind of fun to finally do it," he said.
2:49 p.m. Margaret Beeks Elementary (on Airport Road in Blacksburg)
"It's pretty calm right now but this morning it was busy," Jane Aronson, a stay at home mother volunteering for a campaign said. "The line went all the way to the kindergarten." When Aronson voted at 10:30 a.m. it took her 35 minutes to vote while voters walked in and out of the polls later that afternoon. The volunteer coordinator told Aronson that 1,575 of about 3,000 voters had cast ballots at the precinct by 2 p.m. not including absentee ballots.
As a light rain fell, Jim Wightman, a retired chemistry professor handing out sample ballots shared his umbrella and his plans to get a free coffee from Starbucks once his volunteer shift ended. Wightman voted at Luther Memorial Lutheran Church at 6 a.m. and it took him 20 minutes despite the long lines. However, one voter said he hit the button to vote before picking candidates for all of the races, making the machine out of service.
Martha Edmonds, a mental health therapist replaced Aronson when her shift was over. Edmonds voted at Slusser's Chapel Church of God at about 11 a.m. and while she didn't face any lines, she heard that a woman putting up signs couldn't find a parking space when the polls opened. An election protection volunteer at Slusser's filled out a incident report after a voter said he accidentally hit an independent candidate on the ballot with his knuckle and couldn't change it. "I guess you could get flustered and let that happen," she said.
Katherine Durham, voting with her daughter Rebecca said that she didn't have any problems. However, "I told her I had the strangest urge to vote for Ralph Nader," Durham said.
Arnold Mink heard friends complain about lines at the polls and was happy there were none at Margaret Beeks though he was concerned that all of the ballots won't be counted tonight. "I just don't know, we might not know who won until December," he said, adding that he was happy to hear so many people were voting.
"Well, that didn't take long at all. I allotted a lot more time than that," one voter said to another while leaving the polls.
10:02 a.m. Fairfax County Government Center
Alysoun McLaughlin
The line at the Fairfax County Government Center persists, but there were no lines at two nearby precincts along Lee Highway. The lines at Bull Run Elementary had dissipated by 8 a.m., while lines at Virginia Run Elementary were gone by 9 a.m.
No line, that is, to check in or to obtain a paper ballot. If you want to use the touch screen, though, you might have to be patient. At each of the two locations, between 10 and 20 voters waited in line to cast their ballot on the DRE, ignoring poll workers trying to offer them an optical scan ballot.
At Virginia Run Elementary School, check-in judges could be overheard telling every voter "you can step right over here and vote on a paper ballot or you can wait in the line to use the machines," and most voters chose to wait. According to Linda Waymire, the chief poll worker at Virginia Run, voters just don't seem to be comfortable with the new paper system. "When the lines were really long this morning, I got up there and said 'you can vote right now on a paper ballot', and they all just looked at me."
9:40 a.m. St. Michael's Lutheran Church (on Merrimack Road in Blacksburg)
Kat Zambon
The turn from Prices Fork Road to Merrimack Road was marked by a six-foot Rock the Vote sign while cars parked in the shoulder sit in front of the church. Amanda Eckerson, Rock the Vote's Virginia coordinator stood on the lawn in front of the church with a cell phone, uploading pictures to Rock the Vote's website and sending emails and text messages.
By 8 a.m. 837 people had voted, Eckerson said. Most precincts have about 3,000 voters but St. Michael's has 5,500 voters including one of the largest retirement communities in the country and some of Virginia Tech, she said. "It's a very important precinct, especially for student voting," Eckerson said. "The youth vote is going to determine this election so we wanted to make sure there were no problems" at St. Michael's, she said.
The line of voters in the morning surprised Donald Shepherd, a bus driver who handed out McCain stickers in front of the polls. "I didn't think it would be that bad," he said, but the line stretched several hundred feet to the edge of the pavement while drivers double-parked.
"This morning it was a zoo. The line was long but it really moved," Becky Pedrotty, a student organizer for AFL-CIO's voting rights protection program said. "It's encouraging to know all these people are voting people are happy."
Despite the early morning line, Shepherd said things were going well and explained that poll workers usually only have two books dividing the voter list alphabetically while this year there are four books. Poll workers frequently called for voters whose last names started with letters H through O and P through Z to move to the front of the line.
Eckerson said she was disappointed with Virginia Tech and Montgomery County's failure to proactively assist student voters. For example, days before the election, there was no dedicated transportation for students to get to the polls, she said. Since then the county started using one shuttle to service the two biggest precincts that holds about 25 passengers. Additionally drivers in vans with Obama signs offered to take students back to campus.
Between the shuttles, vans and crowded parking lot, some drivers faced a tight squeeze when maneuvering their vehicles. "I hope we don't have an automobile accident," Sid Mitchell, a campaign volunteer said as he handed out stickers.
While students at Liberty University in Lynchburg have the day off for election day and the University of Virginia allows students to use excused absences for election day, Virginia Tech made no such accommodations, Eckerson said. Also, there was no sign at the intersection of Prices Fork and Merrimack showing voters where to turn until Rock the Vote put it there, she said. "We're working against the tide here so that's why I'm trying to make sure nothing goes wrong," Eckerson said.
Virginia Tech is one of ten schools Rock the Vote is paying special attention to this election day, Eckerson said, including University of Central Florida, Florida State University, Ohio State University, University of Colorado and Drexel University. After students voted, she encouraged them to sign a banner and take Rock the Vote hats, shirts, pins and stickers sitting under a tree. "Is all this stuff free? Is this the giving tree?" a student asked.
A voter approached the table and said she would take pins to her sons who voted earlier. "Trust me, we never see young people" at this precinct, she said, thanking the volunteers for their work.
While students wait for transportation back to campus, volunteers handed out "I Rocked the Vote" pins. Sarah Bizzak, an international studies major at Virginia Tech handed out brochures with student voting rights. "I really want to make sure kids know their rights" because first-time voters are already nervous, she said.
"The students were really appreciative to have their rights," Brittany Worrell, a political science major at Virginia Tech said. Worrell said that voting rights advocates visited her classes and told students what to expect. "The things that they told us, I wouldn’t have known otherwise," she said.
As a group of students joined the line to vote, Pedrotty advised a voter to remove a McCain sticker, warning that voters aren't allowed to wear campaign paraphernalia in the polls in Virginia. "We don't want anyone to get there and get turned around," she said. Bizzak encouraged students to use their Hokie passport as identification.
A young boy leaving the polls with his mother pointed at the growing line and said, "I'm glad we already voted, aren't you, Mommy?"
When poll workers called voters whose last names started with letters H through O, Emily Klopf, a sophomore marketing management major at Virginia Tech moved to the front of the line. "It went really fast, I was lucky, really smooth," she said. A minivan with an Obama sign pulled up and the driver asked if any students needed a ride back to campus. Klopf waved, apologized for having to cut her interview short and hopped in the van.
9:39 a.m. Slusser's Chapel Church of God (on Mount Tabor Road in Blacksburg)
Kat Zambon
Karen Trear, a teacher handing out campaign literature said voters who arrived after 7:30 a.m. got in and out of the polls easily but that was not the case at 6 a.m. when the line wrapped around the church out to the street. "It was enormous. You would think it was like 12 noon," she said. "It was amazing." With the lot full, voters parked on the street and in the driveway next door and others took a Blacksburg Transit shuttle bus.
By 8:40 a.m., campaign workers appeared to outnumber voters. One voter returned to pick up a wallet he left at the polls after voting at 6 a.m. while another voter came back after being deterred by the line when the polls opened. "You are so fabulous for voting," Trear said to a woman leaving. "Well, it was so easy here," she answered.
Nora Sue Fugate voted with her husband Bruce, a farmer and she was disappointed that there was no line. "Well if there was a line, that would mean there were a lot of people voting," she said.
Laurel Schirr, an adjunct professor at Radford University moved from the suburbs of Chicago and enjoyed using a voting system that was new to her. "I like the new toys," Ed Clayton, a retired IT professor said about the system.
"We always have good results with the people who work the polls," Dean Dowdy, Montgomery County election board secretary said. "They're focused on what they do." Montgomery County has had 8,100 new registrants since the end of August, mostly students who, in Dowdy's opinion, should participate in elections by voting absentee in their home precincts.
"It would just be more efficient to vote absentee," he said. "They didn't really gain anything by changing their registration. Of course it's easier to participate if you're here but you could have voted absentee," Dowdy said.
6:33 a.m. County Government Center
Alysoun McLaughlin
Normally, I serve as a roaming support tech on Election Day across the river in Montgomery County, Maryland. Today, I'm following the headlines across the river and have offered to pitch in where needed in Fairfax County as media attention focuses on the battleground state of Virginia. So far, however, I don't appear to be needed to run power cords to far-flung polling sites. Scattered reports are coming in of optical scan machines that are not functioning properly and the office is sending out replacements.
The only consequence for the voter at those sites is that they will not have an overvoted ballot kicked back to them; voters can still securely cast their ballot into a side compartment of the ballot box. Fairfax County is making the transition from plastic to paper, with both WINvote DREs and precinct count optical scanners in each polling place. Voters are steered toward using a paper ballot because the DREs are being phased out. When asked which voting system to use, poll workers are trained to recite from a set script and say that "both systems are certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia; it is a personal choice". Each precinct is supplied with sufficient paper ballots for 103 percent of the voters assigned to the polling site.
6:25 a.m. Luther Memorial Lutheran Church (on Prices Fork Road in Blacksburg)
Kat Zambon
Between the crowded parking lots lined with yard signs, about 60 voters stood against a white picket fence while poll workers asked for voters to step forward according to their last names and campaign volunteers distributed sample ballots and stickers. "P through Z! Pig through zebra!" a poll worker shouted.
Though it was significantly longer when polls opened, the line shrank as voters shuffled to the front "The line looks incredibly short all of a sudden, doesn't it?" a campaign volunteer said after a few voters moved to the front of the line.
Rob Van Trees moved to the front of the line based on his last name and left the polls 15 minutes later. Van Trees, a music and engineering major at Virginia Tech heard a poll worker warn voters not to press the button to vote until the ballot was completely filled out. "I was deathly afraid I would cast a blank ballot," he said, "but it was really simple."
Voters moved quickly, surprising some who were prepared to wait longer. "It went faster than I anticipated," Mark Corwith said after voting with his wife Jill. "For as many people are here it went really well," he said. Ron Kovalcin waited about 40 minutes to vote. "It was quick once you're in," he said.
Garret Flagg and his wife Sheena came to the poll with their young children. "Very streamlined, it went very fast," he said. "Especially considering the line," she added.
"People are being very nice and polite in line," Hugh Gallagher, a voting machine custodian for Montgomery County said. "If people are patient, things will go well today."
Gallagher felt confident that things would go smoothly. "With an election this size you can imagine people are a little nervous" but "if there were any problems I would have heard about it by now," he said. "The county is prepared," he said, praising the election officials.
"I'm a little worried about the end of the day" because the line's length can be deceiving since it snakes around, Rob Krickus said after waiting 35 minutes to vote.
Students from Virginia Tech, frequently decked out in Hokie maroon and orange sweatshirts, cast ballots for the first time at the polling place, including Joel Wallace and Mike Shofner, both engineering students. "It was my first time voting. It was just what I thought it would be," Peter Romagnoli, a business major said.
Gloria Schoenholtz, a research specialist at Virginia Tech planned to spend most of election day working but after waiting in line for about 40 minutes to vote, her excitement only grew. "I'm so excited I can hardly figure out what to do with the rest of the day," she said. "I can hardly stand myself, I'm so excited."
Other voters were less enthusiastic, including one voter who cursed at a campaign volunteer offering him a Democratic sample ballot. "I vote American," he said, storming off.
6:01 a.m. Fairfax County Government Center
Alysoun McLaughlin
As the polls open, the line is up to 250 people and counting. Eka, an observer from the Republic of Georgia, walks in from a stroll through the line at 6:23 and tells me that the line has doubled and is snaking through the halls of the sprawling government building. There are approximately 3,800 voters on the list for the polling place downstairs, 20 percent of whom have already cast an absentee ballot.
5:04 a.m. Fairfax County Government Center
Alysoun McLaughlin
The streets are dark, Starbucks is just unlocking its doors and the polls don't open for another hour, but there are already more than 50 people waiting in line to vote at the Fairfax County Government Center.
Upstairs at the office of the Registrar, the workday is in full swing. The phones are ringing and being answered cheerfully with polling places reporting in. The radio is playing classic rock and the vibe in the office is relaxed and under control. If it wasn't for the predawn darkness outside and the line downstairs, you might think it was just another weekday at the office of the Fairfax County Registrar.
8:30 p.m. Madison
Beth Jacob
By 7:45 -- just 15 minutes before closing time-- poll workers outnumber voters three to one at Madison’s Fire Station #1. Chief Elections Inspector Susan Robertson says the day has seen high volume, although not quite as high as she had been expecting. The optical scanner count is at 2,568 as a handful of students trickle in to cast last-minute votes. “I was hoping for 3,000,” Robertson says.
The big issue here today, as has been reported across the city, is the voter list issued by the state. The official roll is “woefully inadequate,” says Robertson. Over the course of the day dozens of students who have registered prior to Election Day have arrived to find they are not listed. Behind the check in-desk, two observers man laptops to verify the missing registrations. But not everyone shows up on the state’s list. “If the voter has the right verification, they can re-register here,” says Robertson. “But some of them have had to go back home to get it.” In this student-dominated precinct, poll workers report this hasn’t been too much of a problem; with most living nearby, it’s not that hard to make it home and back.
According to local paper The Capital Times, the errors are due to the large numbers—especially students—who have registered with third party groups rather than in person at a municipal office. Some groups have been collecting registrations and then mailing them in bulk, but those filed after the official deadline on October 15th may not have made it onto the official rolls in time.
Apart from voter list omissions, the biggest issue reported today has been the large numbers of absentee ballots. At Stephens Elementary School on the city’s west side, a poll worker who asked not to be named says the folded ballots are testing the capacity of the optical scan machines. Because they do not lie as flat inside the machine as those cast in person, the absentee ballots are a bit unwieldy. “We’ve got five bags full that we had to pull out because they take up so much space.” Carefully sealed in official bags from the city clerk’s office, the votes will be counted by evening’s end. “I like the optical scanners a lot,” says the poll worker, “But I wish they had more room in them if we’re going to get so many absentees.”
4:45 p.m St. Bernard Catholic Church, Middleton
Beth Jacob
To the west of Madison, the city of Middleton has the only lines I’ve seen since early this morning. A poll worker who asks not to be identified reports waits around an hour between 7:00 and 10:30, and that it’s picked back up now that the work day is coming to an end. Now about a dozen people stand in each of two lines, which move fairly briskly.
“This is a big district,” says elections observer Linda Roberson. “We were predicting between 5,000 and 6,000 votes, and we’re at nearly 4,000 right now. Plus there are nearly 2,000 absentee ballots they haven’t counted yet.”
“People here are really doing everything they can to help you vote,” says a voter who chooses not to give her name. “And I think this is how the process ought to work. You can register at the polls, and the workers have been really helpful answering questions.”
At the door on the opposite side of the room, a woman with two young children squats down to put her arms around their shoulders. “This is an important day,” she tells them. “I want you to remember what you see.”
3:00 pm. Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Beth Jacob
The corridors of Memorial Library are lined with students, but not those waiting to vote. Most are bent over books or eating their lunch at tables, and many sport stickers announcing they have already voted today. Inside the polling place, there is no wait, despite the four separate check in stations, each manned by two people waiting to check voters in. Chief election inspector Ann tells me that this ward, which is comprised entirely of students, generally sees big numbers of same day registrations, but “It’s different this year. I credit the campaigns with really getting the kids registered before today. That’s the biggest change I’ve seen.”
Across the street at Memorial Union, the scene is pretty much the same. Students wander in in groups of two or three, where they are checked in by poll worker Dave S. “We’ve had about a thousand come in so far,” he says, “About a third are first-timers. “Both polling stations are dedicated to student voters, who can register by their dorm rather than having to show some of the other forms of address verification. Poll workers from both places say the longest waits came this morning, when as many as 100 students had lined up before the polls opened. “We processed them pretty quickly,” Dave S. reports. “The training for poll workers has been great, and I think that’s helped the day go as smoothly as it has.”
Student Abigail Forecki, who registered for the first time in the 2008 primaries, says “it went really well. Everyone’s just so excited that it’s finally happening. I would definitely vote again.”
Outside on library mall, a group of student elections monitors agrees that the day has been a success so far. Amanda Evenstone, a volunteer, reports that two machines have jammed in student polling places, but both were fixed without too much delay. “The only real problems I’ve seen are people who think they are registered and don’t end up on the rolls,” she says. “But since you can register right there, they can handle it pretty easily.”
By late afternoon, the consensus across several polling stations is that the morning’s lines have not been predictive of waiting crowds throughout the day. At Trinity Lutheran Church just south of campus about 875 votes have been logged by 3:45. Chief inspector Melanie Sax says “It’s going really well. We had about 200 in line when we opened at 7:00, but it’s quieted down a lot since then.”
Volunteer Richard Rathman agrees that the big difference this year is the number of absentee ballots. “We’ve got tons more than we have in the past,” he says, although no one has made a final count. The only trouble today? Another jammed machine. “It took the clerk’s office about 40 minutes to come fix it,” Rathman tells me. “Once they got here, they made an announcement when they opened the machine just to let everyone know what was going on. No one seemed to worried about it.”
Do short lines mean the turnout isn’t what everyone was expecting? “No way,” says Helen Eckerly, a poll worker at Spring Harbor Middle School. “We’ve got 2,100 on our rolls, and almost 1,500 have voted so far. And we’ve got 500 absentee ballots we’ve already counted, with probably another 200 to go.”
Spring Harbor voter Inna Larsen has brought her 8 year-old daughter with her today. “I was up at 5:00 a.m. this morning, I was so excited. I’m apprehensive, but it feels like a really special day.”
10:00 a.m. Olbrich Botanical Garden, Madison
Beth Jacob
A steady stream of cars makes its way in and out of the parking lot at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, but at the polling place doors there is hardly anyone waiting in line. Brad Delange, who came back to Madison from Sweden to cast his ballot, calls the mood inside “upbeat and refreshing.” As for the short wait to cast his ballot, “I was expecting a lot longer lines,” he says, “But I hear it was packed this morning.”
Ken Georg, who is monitoring the election for the Obama campaign, says the crowds were indeed much bigger early this morning. “When I got here there were 360 people and the wait was more than an hour. It’s slowed down a lot since then, but I expect it will pick back up later today.”
Inside, Jeanie, the precinct captain at Olbrich, seems relaxed and cheerful in spite of a jammed voting machine just 15 minutes into the day. “It took about an hour for the city to come fix it,” she says, which translated to a backlog of about 500 votes that had yet to be fed through. Ballots were folded and sealed in official bags from the city clerk under the watch of a certified witness. “Everyone was fine about it once I explained that folding their ballots wouldn’t interfere with how they’re read. I just told people that all the absentee ballots come folded, too, and no one had any real complaints.”
Delange, who had cast his ballot when the machine was down, agreed that no one seemed too upset. “The poll worker made several very loud announcements, so everyone knew exactly what was going on.”
Voter Gail Cyrkiel described the process as much better than she had expected. “It was so smooth, I couldn’t believe it. I was in and out in five minutes.” Her friend Steffie Green agreed: “I always vote here, and they’re always good. But this year they seem exceptionally well organized.” Standing nearby, election day volunteer Susan Oshman says it’s been a great morning so far. Local restaurants came by to drop off snacks and coffee, and a jazz band serenaded the line earlier in the day. “It just feels different this year,” she says. And even with some nervousness about the jammed machine, “People are so pumped to be a part of it all.”
By 11:00, the biggest story about Madison area voting is just how quiet everything has gotten. In neighboring Monona, there are no lines at the Community Center, despite a 30-40 minute wait when polls opened at 7:00. Precinct captain Cherie Goetz reports no serious problems other than a handful of overvotes, which were quickly remedied. “There’s been a steady turn out all day,” she says, “and people are just in such good moods. One lady even had a friend take her picture as she cast her vote.”
At the registration desk, poll worker Vern Breunig agreed that things had pretty much died down by 8:30, although he was expecting big crowds by the end of the day. Having worked the polls in 2004, Breunig says “We are much better organized and prepared this time, maybe because we were expecting so many people. In 2004, there was a lot of confusion and the lines got kind of disorganized.” After completing his registration, first time voter Colin Erskine says “the whole thing went really well. I was expecting a lot longer lines.”
Back in Madison, the gymnasium of LaFollette High School is pretty much empty by 11:30. Voters trickle in and are quickly processed. Jane Orosco, who has voted at LaFollette two times before, says her name wasn’t on the rolls this year, but that poll workers “were really helpful and straightened things out right away.”
By noon, chief election inspector Chuck Stertz at Kennedy Middle School looks over the mostly empty room and explains the big turnout was mostly in the morning. “This is my fourth time working the election, and this is the heaviest year so far. I guess it’s the absentee ballots and early votes that are the most surprising. We have boxes and boxes of them.” He points over at the ballots that will be counted throughout the day. “Maybe that’s where everyone is who would have been here.”
8:30 a.m. Madison
Beth Jacob
Six blocks away at Lapham Elementary School, a handful of local parents are doing swift business at a PTA bake sale. At 7:30, approximately 35 people wait in line. According to election observer Ryan Keegan, the wait has shrunk dramatically in just half an hour. “When I got here at 7:00, there must have been 150 people in line,” he says, “But they are moving really well in there.”
Inside the school doors, a sample ballot hangs on the wall outside the door, along with a list of candidates, directions in Spanish and the language for the local school referendum. Nearby is a warning against voter fraud and information on how to report any suspected irregularities. Compared to Gates of Heaven, Lapham’s polling place is spacious—there are 12 privacy booths along one wall, and precinct captain G.A. Dietze is circulates among the crowd telling voters they can fill out their ballots anywhere in the room.
In the corner, the precinct’s voting machine is stuck on 107 ballots cast. When asked about voters stuffing ballots into a slot beneath the official counter, Dietze reports it’s been jammed for about 20 minutes now--ever since someone accidentally got their ballot’s privacy sleeve stuck in the machine. Dietze put a call in to the city clerk’s office and they are supposed to be sending someone out. “But that chute is pretty small,” he says, as he looks over at the edge of a ballot now hanging out of the slot.
Despite the technological glitches, no one seems terribly concerned. One voter, who asked not to be named, says “I think they’ll get it fixed up soon. They’re pretty organized in there.” Local resident Luke Winslow agrees. “I’m not concerned about it,” he says. “The line is moving quick and people are in good spirits.”
By 8:00 there’s hardly a line outside the polling place, with the exception of voters eyeing goodies at the bake sale. Yet even with the relative quiet, the day has its firsts. “When they opened the doors the crowd started cheering,” says local parent Betsy Parker. “I’ve never seen that before.”
6:45 a.m. Madison
Beth Jacob
Built in 1863, Madison’s Gates of Heaven Synagogue has a seating capacity of 98, but today’s voters are likely to push well past that limit. Yet even with the line of nearly 100 people stretching out the door and down East Johnson Street, the mood in the crowd is almost jovial, if a little groggy. A saxophone player stands under an oak tree playing jazz versions of America the Beautiful. Local resident Pitt Fagan says it took him about half an hour to make it to the head of the line, and that he had actually been expecting worse. “I haven’t seen any signs of annoyance,” he says. “It’s a beautiful day.”
Inside the building, new registrations are being processed in the narrow balcony. A line snakes up the stairwell and has already started to back up into the main room, where it shares space with ten privacy booths, a seating area for observers and two sets of desks to check voters in. With the temple’s main floor no more than 20 feet across, it’s easy to imagine that the tight space may prove challenging as the day moves on.
Voter Breianna Hasenzahl-Reeder says she ran into a small hitch over finding her hyphenated last name on the rolls, but that the problem was quickly resolved. Fellow UW-Madison student Allison Page says the process “was a great experience. I was expecting a longer line, and everyone was really friendly and helpful.” Her only complaint today? “They don’t have any stickers!”
12:20 pm, Monday November 3
Milwaukee
Beth Jacob
Inside downtown Milwaukee’s Frank P. Zeidler Municipal Building, the lines to register and vote are stacked two deep up and down the winding hallways, out the door and down the block. Exiting the glass doors after changing her address and casting her ballot, Rachel Stenman high fives a waiting friend. When asked about the mood in the long line, she replies, “It took about two and a half hours, but people seem pretty patient about it. They expect to wait today.”
Stenman, who has voted in Milwaukee for the past three presidential elections, reports that she waited three hours in 2004, so she the expects tomorrow to be even worse. Many in today’s lines say they came to vote early to avoid the predicted record turnout. Standing nearby, local nurse Julie Adams says she has seen only a handful of people leave the line early, and that those around her “seem pretty excited.” Citing a 12-hour shift tomorrow, Julie says she appreciates the chance to come vote early today.
But not everyone describes such a positive experience. Over the course of two hours, the line to register and vote absentee grows longer–by 2:30 voters toward the front of the queue report arriving just after 11:00. Although most of those waiting say the poll workers have been helpful, if harried, some complain the lines are confusing and not clearly marked. Stacy Osten says she “stood in the wrong line at first and wasted 20 minutes.” Up ahead of her another voter reports the same thing happened to him. “They need more signs,” he says. As she hands out applications, poll worker Danielle agrees “people are getting cranky.”
Indeed, inside the building’s Broadway Street entrance, it’s not easy to tell who goes where. Residents wait to file the paperwork they received from poll workers in one line, and then are shuttled to another to cast their votes and a third to turn them in. Off to the side of the room, a sample ballot hangs on a bulletin board among a handful of other notices. Inside the voting area, the sixteen privacy booths are only about half full, as people stand with ballots in hand asking last minute questions.
This scene is mirrored on the building’s opposite end, where registered voters face a somewhat shorter wait to pick up their ballots and cast early votes. Exiting the building, Kenya (who asked that his last name not be used) says he spent about an hour and a half in line, and that “everyone around me was in a pretty good mood.”
With reports of 29,000 ballots already cast, it seems many have decided the wait is worth it despite some of the hassle. Scott Bennett, an office manager and city resident sums it up by saying “It’s not as bad as it could be. I mean, it’s shorter than the lines at the DMV.”
7:45 a.m., Monday November 3
Madison
Beth Jacob
On the wall of the City-County building, a sign informs waiting voters that the Madison City Clerk’s office is processing 142 early ballots per hour, or nearly 1,700 per day. These numbers aren’t hard to imagine when looking at the long line of city residents that snakes around the marble corridors. Some hold paperbacks or bottles of water while others chat on cell phones or fill out ballot requests. Two people walking in the door hold camp chairs as they head toward the back of the line, which is estimated at an hour and a half shortly after the clerk’s office opens at 8:00 a.m.
Just inside the door, a poll worker with a laptop helps people process same day registrations. A line of about 12 people wait with paperwork in hand; new voters in the Badger State can register at the polls by showing their state driver’s license or the last four digits of their social security number and supplying proof of residency such as a lease or utility bill. If someone does not have any proof of residence, they can bring a friend to the polls who has a proof of residence, and the friend can vouch for the voter. One first time voter, who asked not to be identified, praised the flexibility of the system and described the poll workers as “super friendly and helpful.”
Down the hall at the entrance to the clerk’s office, construction worker Raymond Fiske is in good spirits. He arrived here this morning at 6:30 after seeing long lines on the news for the past several days. “I think it will be a lot worse tomorrow,” he says, looking at the new arrivals streaming in the front door. “Voting early will save me a lot of time.” Farther down the line, newly naturalized citizen and first-time voter Gontorwon Bohr called the lines “ridiculous,” but also believes that coming in today will save him waiting even longer tomorrow.
Two weeks ago, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk issued a joint news release that echoes these predictions. According to Falk’s statement, “We are expecting the busiest polling places ever on November 4th.” With County Clerk Bob Ohlsen estimating a turnout of between 80-85%, voters were encouraged to vote early to save themselves an even longer wait on Election Day.
But concerns about lengthy waits weren’t the only reasons voters were casting ballots in the days before the election. Bethany Darling, a veterinary technician, said she “loved the convenience” of voting early, and that there would be no way she could take two to three hours out of her work schedule on Tuesday. Nearby, Samantha Stevens said that with her kids off from school tomorrow, she couldn’t imagine “waiting in a long line and trying to keep a four- and a six year-old occupied.”
Inside the clerk’s office, a dozen privacy booths lined the walls, while a team of four to six city officials waited behind the desk to receive completed ballots and answer questions. One official, who asked not to use his name, described everything as running “smoothly” despite the high volume. Looking tired but pleased, he described the office as hitting their record high in processed ballots on Sunday—182 each hour.
The clerk’s office has “worked hard to make sure voters have the information they need,” said another worker. Sample ballots hang on the walls, and contact information is listed for county precincts that offer early voting to residents of other communities. One sign reminds straight ticket voters to be sure to vote on ballot questions, while another cautions against electioneering or political discussions while waiting in line.
Still, not everyone feels things are running as easily. Two county employees who work in the building agreed that early voting is convenient, but they find the large crowds and long lines disruptive to their business. Neither seemed to feel like the wait on Election Day would be that bad, despite the local media’s predictions of record numbers. But looking over the line, which had grown by over a third in 30 minutes, it’s hard to imagine things slowing down tomorrow.
