november 4 is ELECTION DAY in the US

[jimtyrrell]

7AM, I was strolling down the street, listening to Johnny Cashpoint's "Interesting Times"

That's un-American.

Haha, so true. He really should have been driving.

[JonPorobil]

DRC: I've been feeling very sickly lately. Tired all the time, no energy, and I've been prone to more digestive problems than usual lately. Had to leave work early today, which not only costs me the the overtime I was planning on putting in tonight, but also the overtime I put in last night, and what I'm going to put in tomorrow. Working till 7 at night just to break even kind of sucks. So does not having health insurance.

QotD: I voted two weeks ago, on the second day of early voting here in Texas. It took me about half an hour then. In my district, 49-point-something percent of registered voters voted early this year. That's more than the total percentage who voted at all in my district in 2004. I hear the same is true for several entire states.

Of course, not all the news is good this election...

But I'm very optimistic.

[rone rivendale]

QotD: I voted on my lunch break. I live in small town so 'busy' is being 3rd in line to vote hehe. I'm not ashamed to say I voted Obama. Voting McCain would be voting Bush for 4 more years.

[Spud]

8:15 Took Spudnut to the bus
9:30 Hung a show at the gallery
12:00 Client Meeting
1:15 Client Meeting
2:00 Lunch
3:00 Voted
4:23 Posted here
4:30 Picked up Spudnut at the bus
6:00 Take Spudnut to gymnastics
7:30 Pick up Spudnut from gymnastics
8:00 Election party (celebration!) at Barry's

[jack]

i voted. for the next president of the United States, Barack Obama.

and a bunch of other shit that means nothing to most of you.

[Niveous]

Today at the Kinderlings' school they had a mock election.

The results: McCain- 35 votes. Obama- 415 votes.

[fluffy]

can I get a HELL YEAH

sadly it looks like prop 8 has a good chance of passing too :(

[Niveous]

HELL YEAH

[fluffy]

hey niveous

the konami code is just UUDDLRLRBA

The rest is just candy that people added on for whatever reason (I mean it didn't hurt but)

[Niveous]

hey niveous

the konami code is just UUDDLRLRBA

The rest is just candy that people added on for whatever reason (I mean it didn't hurt but)

Hmmm. I did not know that. Maybe I should just go for an IDDQD avatar.

[Caravan Ray]

8:00 Election party (celebration!) at Barry's

At Barry Obama's? That should go off. He puts on a good party. Tell him I'll buy him a beer next time he's down Taranaki way. (oh...and don't muck about with his ears when he's pissed. He hates that)

[fluffy]

I assume Spud is referring to Barry the friend of Octothorpe who was featured on such hits as Fax Machine and Walking The Border.

[Spud]

And - disastrously - on "A Thousand Swords". I must say he made up for it on "Fax Machine".

SPUD

[Caravan Ray]

roy: "The Train to Providence" would be a good song title. No more DC, eh? We'll miss ya.

Just finished voting then driving to work. The line + vote took an hour and 1 minute. Kind of like an hour for the line then one minute to vote... heh. Being an independent I often have my votes split but there were only two party-related votes on this ballot and they went to the same party.
-bill

Why was your voting process such a dog's breakfast. Why are there such long waits?

Voting has never taken me more than 5 minutes. You walk in, get your name checked off, go to a booth and draw a big, hairy penis on the ballot paper - then drop it in the slot, then off you go to the pub. Done.

And I have done much of my voting in places like Sydney and Brisbane - which are just as big and densely populated as US cities. And I would be surprised if your ballot papers are any more complicated than our Senate ballots, which are almost one metre long and have over 100 names on them. And bear in mind that we all HAVE to vote! Or we get lined up against a wall and shot. Or possibly fined.

Why are you guys standing in line so long? I don't understand.

What is the Canadian/UK experience? Has anyone else ever had to wait in line to vote?

I guess I will see how NZ works on Saturday (although I won't be voting). NZ is different though - I believe it is the only modern Western democracy that extends it's universal suffrage to domestic livestock.

[HeuristicsInc]

Well, in Maryland at least so far we can't vote on any day except 4 Nov - unless you have a special reason (e.g. living out of state but still resident in MD) that allows you to file an absentee ballot. So just about everybody that wants to vote needs to do it then. Does the Aus election span more time?
Here elections are run on the local level by volunteers who are either retirees or the one high schooler I saw. They have a hard time getting enough people to staff the different jobs needed to move voters through quickly.
There's also a well-publicized lack of enough voting machines in many places.
On the topic of early voting, we had a measure on our ballot to amend the state constitution to allow it, but CNN's site doesn't say how it went... [edit: good, the local paper's site says we voted 71% yes on that one]
-bill

[roymond]

Let's keep in mind:
Maryland is a teeny tiny state. Australia doesn't have even 4 times its population.

Australia has 80% of the land mass yet 7% of the population of the US.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I sense the small town boy needs to consider scale at some point. But also, lots of our folks should be lined up because they vote

I joke...

[Spud]

There are long lines because voting turnout has historically been low. As recently as 1996, it was below 50%. Surely, you are not expecting the government to waste money by gearing up for 100% turnout, wasting time, money, and resources when it isn't going to happen. 26 million more people votes yesterday than did in 2004. I for one, want to see a trend before we start buying more hardware. Until then, I'll be glad to stand in line to have my chance to participate. Fortunately, the line at my polling place was short. I have waited longer for coffee.

[Caravan Ray]

There are long lines because voting turnout has historically been low. As recently as 1996, it was below 50%. Surely, you are not expecting the government to waste money by gearing up for 100% turnout, wasting time, money, and resources when it isn't going to happen. 26 million more people votes yesterday than did in 2004. I for one, want to see a trend before we start buying more hardware. Until then, I'll be glad to stand in line to have my chance to participate. Fortunately, the line at my polling place was short. I have waited longer for coffee.

I guess that is the answer.

Though I was surprised a bit about the turnout. It really seemed like a 'drovers dog' election. Surely the incumbent was always going to drag down anyone from the current party.

And what 'hardware' do you need? Don't you just use cardboard boxes with holes in the top?

To Bill - no, we all vote on one day - unless you are overseas or something, then you can do a postal vote - but that is a small percentage. And the day is always a Saturday. And definitely never Melbourne Cup day And yes - our booths are also staffed by volunteers (i think they get a few bucks for expenses - but its mainly pensioners and uni kids)

Roymond - Yes, I am actually aware that the USA is bigger in population than Australia (OK - I checked that on Wiki) - that is why I used Sydney and Brisbane as examples. A big city is a big city. I assume that you don't have the whole nation lining up to use just one voting booth? (Actually, the only time I have ever seen any type of crowd was when I voted in outback Queensland - and people drove hundreds of km to vote - so it was more of a social event)

[fluffy]

And what 'hardware' do you need? Don't you just use cardboard boxes with holes in the top?

It varies by state. In NM they use pushbutton voting machines, and in CA they use paper ballots with optical scanners (and most of the wait is for a turn in a booth so that you can fill out the ballot in privacy with the special BALLOT MARKING PEN). Those are the only states I've voted in so I don't know how it is anywhere else.

Also the provisioning of ballots is a big part of the slowness. I'd say that the poll workers were only barely to keep up with the polls themselves, since they had a fairly inefficient system for looking up eligibility, such as the first pass being an elderly woman who kept on trying to insert a C between the S and H in my last name even though I kept on slowly and clearly spelling it out for her. At one point I probably committed a felony by touching her sacred book and showing her which page she was supposed to be on and then specifically pointing to the row where my name was clearly printed in large letters. Sigh.

[Hoblit]

And what 'hardware' do you need? Don't you just use cardboard boxes with holes in the top?

It varies by state. In NM they use pushbutton voting machines, and in CA they use paper ballots with optical scanners (and most of the wait is for a turn in a booth so that you can fill out the ballot in privacy with the special BALLOT MARKING PEN). Those are the only states I've voted in so I don't know how it is anywhere else.

Also the provisioning of ballots is a big part of the slowness. I'd say that the poll workers were only barely to keep up with the polls themselves, since they had a fairly inefficient system for looking up eligibility, such as the first pass being an elderly woman who kept on trying to insert a C between the S and H in my last name even though I kept on slowly and clearly spelling it out for her. At one point I probably committed a felony by touching her sacred book and showing her which page she was supposed to be on and then specifically pointing to the row where my name was clearly printed in large letters. Sigh.

Agreed, my first two times around we had touch screens and those ran slow. Waiting for the screen to recognize your touch and then load the next screen. This time around it was a paper ballot with the pen.

I too had to point to my name on the sheet. The girl said 'oh..I'm sorry, teenagers like me shouldn't have to get up so early' - while paraphrased, pretty actual.