Early voting starts today!!!

[Dob Bole]

So get out there and vote!

Polling locations are listed here:

http://www.sos.state.ga.us/elections/advancevotinglocations_2006.htm

[Dob Bole]

1. I voted!

I voted a straight Democratic ticket for the first time (I usually vote for a Republican I know for school board, given the Dixiecrat competition.) However, as the Democrat in my district (Sanford Bishop) will win in a landslide and he voted for the Iraq war, I wrote in another Democrat from my district...James Earl Carter, Jr.!

[hundred6]

2. thanks...

im gonna be outta town on election day supporting my father on his congressional bid in maryland. think i'll cast my ballots tommorrow after work.

[Politicub]

3. I voted yesterday!

:bounce:

[RubyDuby in GA]

4. Absentee - two weeks ago

But hubby voted yesterday. :)

[Hoyt]

5. Took about 20 minutes. No lines. Thanks. n/t

[Debau2005]

6. I am taking one for the troops

and voting on election day. I will try to get through without using a photo id. I am sure I will have some resistance, so I'll have the latest info on the id law in my hand!

[RubyDuby in GA]

7. From a college computer science teacher very active in my county party:

TOUCH SCREEN PROBLEMS

My husband and I voted yesterday and I had problems with the touch-screen system, so in our case 50% of the machines weren’t initially recording our selections properly.

The first thing to note is that the Republican was the first person listed in every race—regardless of alphabetization, incumbency or any other factor. The Democratic candidate was listed second. Any other candidates appeared below these two. This fact was important because in the first two races as I moved my hand toward the second box, the first box lit up. Fortunately, I had read the instructions on the first screen and knew that if I touched the checked box, it would be “unchecked.” This I did and then tried to move my finger straight in toward the box I wanted to select. I had to touch the box two or three times in once case before an “X” appeared in my chosen box.

By the time I got to the third office I began moving my hand up from the bottom of the screen toward the top rather than from the top down. This seemed to work and I proceeded to complete my voting process.

There are several lessons that I took away from this effort—and ones that you should keep in mind as you begin your voting process.

1) Remember that if a box you did not select is checked, touching it again (or possibly for the first time) should “uncheck” it. If this does not happen, you need to contact a poll worker and get assigned to a new machine.

2) If at all possible, take a good old fashioned wooden pencil with you when you vote and touch your selections with the eraser end of the pencil. This should eliminate the “shadow” effect of using your finger. If you do not have a pencil (or other such item such as the heel end of a ballpoint pen) move your hand from the bottom of the screen toward the top until you get to the box you want then touch it firmly.

3) Be sure to review your final ballot which will be displayed after you have completed your vote. It will take a minute or two to scroll down and up to view all of your selections (the scrolling arrows are on the left side of the screen), but DO IT!! If any of the selections are not the ones you made, you can still back up by touching the “PREVIOUS” button at the bottom of the display until you get to the screen you need and try again. Be sure to review ALL of your selections again after you have made the correction.

4) If, despite all of your efforts you cannot get the correct selection/s to display, report the problem to a poll worker. Get the problem on record and ask to be assigned to another machine to try again. Be polite but insistent (the poll workers are NOT the ones at whom you should be mad) but do not leave the polling place without casting a ballot that correctly displays the way you voted.

5) If you do have a problem, try to document it by photographing, recording, or just writing it down, preferably at the polling place. Then report the problem to the following website: www.blackboxvoting.org

You can also report problems to the Democratic National Committee at the following number: 1-888-DEM-VOTE (1-888-336-8683)

Across the nation early voters are reporting that voting machines are miss-recording votes and in every recorded instance the mistake favors the Republican. This defies the laws of chance and demonstrates why the voting process shouldn’t be in the hands of corporations who secretly program these systems. If half of the voters need to fight the touch-screen machines to cast the ballot they want, the trust in the process and people who conduct the vote is suspect at a minimum.

[Debau2005]

8. In the primary

I had to wait 45 minutes for the poll workers, and Diebold rep to fix my issue! They had assigned me a Repub ballot, even though I had checked the Democratic box, AND verbally said Democrat. I got the impression that they thought I would go away. But I had all the time in the world, so I made them nervous as I watched them run around like Chicken Little trying to "fix" their error!

I wrote an LTTE to AJC, a longer letter to the National Democratic Headquarters, and to the Secretary of State. I didn't get a response from anyone! But had the satisfation that at least for 45 minutes I irritated the poll workers in my red area of the metro! :evilgrin:

I will take special care next week to make sure that my vote is properly recorded.

[GaYellaDawgDem]

9. Advanced voted today

Thanks for the heads up on the listing of candidates. Does anyone know why the R's are listed first? In any case I was very careful to hone in only on the Democratic candidates and tried not to hover over or cast any shadows over the other names. I did have some trouble with a few where even though I pushed the box for the Dem, nothing lit up. I redid those and had no further trouble. I checked very carefully at the end to make sure all my selections were correct (at least to see that the machine showed me who I think I voted for). One thing that was quite interesting and I'm not sure if this means much...at the review part it indicated that the races you did not vote for would be highlighted in red. Well on my machine, the ones I DID vote for were red and the ones I did not were in pink. It was either a color problem on the machine or I just wasted my vote. (Anyone have any views on that?)

I voted at one of the Gwinnett sites and it was quite busy. They were adamant that cell phones be "made inactive" allegedly due to state law. I'm not sure if that's true or not but several folks said "oh that makes sense". To whom I have no idea.