Sarah comments from California:
I live in Los Angeles. We have plenty of voting precincts and machines available. California has thousands of polling precincts, each serving maybe 200 people or
so. Lines at the end of the day are long, but nothing to compare when looking at
Ohio or Florida or other states.How do we do it? We have polls set up everywhere (and I mean everywhere):
-wedding chapel
-garage of lifeguard headquarters
-private home
-garage
-school auditorium
-Krishna temple
-union office
-police museum
-Cetacean Society building
-fire station
-Columbarium
-party supply store
-Echo Park indoor pool
-laundromatMy point is that Los Angeles facilitates the voting process, bringing it as close to the place where people live as possible, making the precincts small enough to be manageable.
It's not that hard to do.
I went to look for photos of what Sarah describes, and sure enough, Californians are voting in laundromats. From the LA Times Framework blog:
Don Bartletti/LA Times
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Leave it to Cali to come up with creative, inclusive solutions to the problem! Go Cali!
That is right! Funny how the biggest populous state has the least problems with voting. In my county in Silicon Valley most of us do it by mail. I had a ballot two solid weeks before the election. Many polling places were empty during the day.
I had to laugh at just how incredibly out of touch Rove was to our voting trends. Considering the majority of his demographic also vote by mail, running expensive ads during primetime less than one week before the election was about a week too late. For all the impact it had he could have run them this week and maybe gotten a discount....MUUHAHAHAHA!
I don't care what you hear, think or see, California leads the way. IN EVERYTHING. And if you'll check we're the only state that didn't buy in to the tea party ideology. Not one seat lost in the "wave" of two years ago. Now if you'll check, we've almost made the GOP extinct. We are looking ahead to a really great year thanks to Jerry Brown. We have everything. just ask Betty White. She'll tell you how we're rolling.
You just gotta love Jerry That man is a California Icon.
"All hail Governor Moonbeam"
I resemble that, as a Cali native, I applaud the creativity!
No, we don't surf every day. I do love that ad, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iey7_N_mEx4&feature=related
That's how we roll, from Betty White to Snoop Dogg.
We just turned the State assembly into super majority (once Ludgren gives it up? ) Now we can get the budget done in time?
Yes, 2 time Gov. Brown figured it out. Prop 30 passed. We can have teachers again. Yahoo!
But if they get too crazy, they will be replaced, so be wise Reps.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/DEMOCRATS-DOMINATE-CALIFORNIA-Hold-on-to-your-4017806.php
I voted at the elementary school gym, 2 precincts, i arrived early.. 8:05.. walked right to registration desk.. showed my sample ballot.. they looked me up, I signed by my name.. went to one of the 4 open booths.. and sharpied my scantron..
AMAZING.. WE PASSED A TAX INCREASE!!!! for education... what "snobs" we are to do that.. great JOB cali.. the local jr college is almost to the point of having so few programs.. what's the point of calling it a college..
Bill . . . California leads the way in many things, but Oregon and Washington are still way ahead of it when it comes to voting. We've been doing Vote By Mail here in Oregon for ALL elections since 1999. There's absolutely NO reason why this wouldn't work in all other states.
Jill20 mentioned that she voted by mail in CA several weeks before November 6. That's what led us to do that in Oregon. So many people were voting by absentee ballot that it simply made no sense to maintain an in-person election day system that relatively few were using.
I think we have the technology to vote, as an alternative by ATM. Hell, if they can sell you stamps, recognize horrible handwriting on checks then they can process a ballot and give you a receipt for it. I would like to see a national way of doing this as well as the ability to follow up on your vote online for added verification. Most banks already have your SS# anyway, not to mention they can take your picture at ATM.
That's what we need! Clean elections!
The real Chris,#2
Maybe all the polls should be in a laundromat!
Howdy, India.
We won!
TherealChris,
Yep! I kept telling the trolls that I was breaking out the champagne two months ago! The electoral numbers weren't there for them for a while. They couldn't accept it.
Plus it's super easy to vote by mail/absentee. There is literally no excuse to not vote in California. We have nothing but awe and love for you folks who fought back against the suppression.
In CA now you don't need an "excuse" to get an absentee ballot, in fact you can ask for a "permanent" absentee ballot (meaning you don' t have to keep requesting it every election). If you want to hand-deliver it because you forgot to mail it early enough, that's ok too. Since we often have a lot of propositions, I usually sit down with my collected "information" (printed stuff they send, my notes from TV ads or newspapers & web, etc. and work my way through the sample ballot at my convenience. I can change my mind the next day if I want to. The only thing better would be an option to upload it online instead of mail, but right now I'm glad to give the post office more work. Why all states don't do this is beyond me!
Rather simple the conservatives have a long history of supporting voter suppression and limiting voting to a select few that they get to pick and choose. If you had listened to the trolls these last few months you would have heard them repeat the lie that voting was not a right and that the constitution didn't have any laws giving the people the right to vote even though the 1965 voters right act granted those voting rights.
I like this shot more, voting at the pool.
http://framework.latimes.com/2012/11/06/america-votes/#/19
I've been voting in California for 33 years, I've never stood in line.
Yeah, I went back and forth over which one to use. The one of voting at the pool is stupendous.
Here in Northern CA I staffed a polling place in a funeral home. We've used this facility for several elections, but this year for the first time, they actually held a funeral service on election day. Fortunately, we were able to sort out those coming for the funeral and those coming to vote, and neither group got confused. We did overhear the entire funeral service, which was being held for a 55-year old Asian woman who had died of cancer. It was quite touching as several guests shared their memories of her, and it will be an election day I won't soon forget. Oh yeah, it helps that we were also able to lay Mitt Romney's electoral hopes to rest that day, but we didn't know that at the time.
#5, Nathan,
LOL! Good Lord! Perhaps the owner of the funeral home should have thought that that could happen!
Maybe this is where the rumour dead people vote comes from.
LOL!
I hope they kept a lid on it! Mitt missed out on a chance to baptize! Hows that for deadpan humor?
cute guy on right gets my vote.
vote laundering?
I voted in a Berkeley firehouse.
Did they have a pole?
yeah, it was plumb, not skewed at all.
Hee hee hee I couldn't resist!
But that means "those people" can vote and still get to work. Ridiculus! Peonns and serfs voting. Where is the Tea Party?
Thanks for showing those of us in the south what could happen if we let a bunch of lefty radicals into the South!
(now, is it required to wear a flower in one's hair, if you go to California?)
No flower required, just a friendly smile and a good attitude. We're proud of our sorta hippy background. A whole lot of those people really were artists, nerdy tech, and genius type people. But, if ya like mountains, we have 'em, if you like oceans and beaches, thousand miles of 'em, hiking, fishing. Great pro sports, our Giants were the greatest and our Forty-Niners are leading in their division. I think that's pretty good. We have it all, and it's no joke. And that's in addition to the excellent conditions for voting. I never stood in line in 50 years of voting. Proud to say.
I do believe there is a Law that all employers has to give their employees 2 hours on voting day.
I voted in a mobile home park, and the short drive around the corner it took me to get there from my home had me passing another voting station in a senior rec center. It took me under five minutes, aside from the actual voting, to get in and out. In more than twenty years of voting in CA, I've never had any significant problems with access at voting stations or with extended waiting. I think the longest wait I've ever had was under 20 minutes. Additionally, the electronic voting in my area has a printed paper trail that you are asked to review and confirm as correct to complete your voting. It's shocking to see other states with hours long waiting times.
Looking at the Florida voting fiasco, my question is, "Why can't Gov. Scott be prosecuted by the justice department for violating the voting Rights Act of 1965?" Clearly he did everything he could to prevent people from voting for the president, including making the ballot so long and involved it took at least a half hour to finish it! Here in PA, I left a cup of hot coffee on the table, and when we came back, it was still hot! That even included greeting friends at the poll!!
The only poetic justice we, the voters, got from that FL election is that, in the end, Florida was IRRELEVANT and the election was called without it.
Still, the justice department needs to make Scott accountable and if they don't, that is a travesty.
India: Not only Scott of Florida should be investigated, that little rat from Ohio Husted should be too. I believe the feds would find lots of dirty money flowing into this guys bank account. Whether its in the Cayman's,Switzerland or here under some phony name.
They're paying for it by losing public support and so are a whole lot of other Republicans as their waking up to the growing isolation they're creating for themselves.
Voice, #10.2
Yes, but I believe what they've done is against the law and if so, they should be held to account.
I hope their isolation grows to where they're seeing nothing but shadows on the walls of a cave.
being from California why did it take florida so much longer to count 2 million votes than it did for california to count 9 million??
10.3
I should've more clearly expressed my appreciation for your opening comment, because believe me India, I'm with you and have already written the appropriate representatives to express similar sentiments about what actions I think should be taken. But in the meantime I'm basking in the joy of watching all of their declining approval ratings.
A little bit of good news. Holder doesn't know if he will be AG for Obama's second term. Maybe we will get a DOJ back that will get off their ass and do their job. O doubt it, but we can always hope.
It's the voters who need to hold Scott in Florida and Kasich/Husted in Ohio accountable. Let's hope they do in 2014.
Jst1 voice, #10.5 Thank you, and thank you especially for writing the appropriate representatives. I, too, am smiling like an idiot half the time over their declining approval! I look like the Cheshire cat!
Larry, I sincerely hope Eric Holder goes. IMO, he has not done his job. Tim Geitner needs to say toodles, also. He gave Obama some bad advice early on, IMO.
PS, Larry, does Moonbeam have photos of the car? Sunshine was wondering.
Besides, despite all that, Obama won Florida. I always saw the GOP voter suppression moves as coming from desperation.
Expensive, error-prone, and hackable voting machines are only needed when you've arranged for far too many people to have to vote in one location. They are not appropriate where there are only about 200 people's ballots to count. If the federal government declared that federal elections -- president, congress and senate -- must be handled the way California does it, every precinct could vote with verifiable and re-countable paper ballots, and the counting could be done publicly. The act of voting should not be some company's profit center, especially a company with ties to a political party or candidate.
Call it the Voting Rights Act of 2013.
They're not needed at all OR and WA don't use them. We vote from home. Vote by Mail. Easy, safe and not weather to brave.
Yeah. I live in WA. The folks at the King County office in Renton had ballot drops on both sides of the street for drive-through delivery of ballots. But if I was living someplace where they haven't switched to this method, I'd much prefer the CA method.
Oregon is on to something. People could get a voters ID when they get their drivers licence and if you don't drive, any time of the year you could go, at your leisure, and get a non-drivers voting ID. This would be so helpful to seniors, young mothers, working people (and who doesn't?), the handicapped, people who are ill......there's no limit to the convenience! You can take your time, no long lines and bad weather to fight, and the mail is always there! (So far!). There could be one day by which the vote had to be in, just like here in PA, we have only one day to vote and it's fine! Though in November, the weather can be nasty.
I love it! It seems like it would save a lot of hassle, time, and money, too!
I live in California and my employer even let's me have a couple hours off with pay in order to vote. Two hour off my start time or finish time. So I sleep in a little and go in the morning. No electronic voting machines at my poll place just a far more error free Insta-Ink machines. Everyone should be able to vote the California way!
My polling place was the showroom of a Toyota Dealership (probably sold a Prius or two :) ) It has been in a real estate office, a hotel meeting room, an apt building lobby, a snack bar. The preciinct is small enough that when I worked it, I knew a good proportion of the people.
I voted in a neighbor's garage in Orange County.
Comedians need Jokes https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k0uMXZfLEec
My first three presidential elections were in California. I voted in two garages and a church. I never waited at all, and I always voted late, after work, not long before the polls closed. That said, I never waited long in NC or WA, either.
Plus Debra Bowen (our SOS) decertified Diebold and the like and the state only uses optical scanners, they are quick and easy to use and impossible to hack, 1 percent of all ballots are hand checked, and it's easy, there's no hanging chads or laptops, all they have to do is read the black dot. If we can do it here there's no reason it shouldn't be a national standard, at least for the presidential election.
Leave it to a largely progressive, liberal, Democratic state to get it right. That's what voting SHOULD be - convenient and available to all registered voters. Let this be a lesson learned. Scott, Husted, Schultz (Iowa) and other state officials who tried to suppress voting SHOULD be prosecuted for violating the Voting Rights Act as well as treason. They shouldn't get off scot free (no pun intended).
Missycheeks. No, they shouldn't. (Good pun, even if unintended)!
Couldn't agree more! San Francisco was a breeze. One of the best things they do is encourage folks to fill out their ballots ahead of time. You bring your ballot already filled in to the polling place and scan it into the machine. Dramatically reduces lines when you don't need to wait for a booth!
MISSYCHEEKS ( LOL) We call him Braindead here in iowa , mr branstead , and the dems defeated the measures , along with , believe it or not , some sane gop
We have early voting here , from movie threaters to right at the colleges , you know it drives the gop crazy to see that , 31% of people voted early , a new record
Notice how the red states were called while blue states were still voting? They do not even want to allow people to get off work and vote .... all the conservative suppression is to disgusting to ever watch again , the 1 st thing obama said in his victory speech was that PEOPLE ARE STILL VOTING (AT 1 AM) , AND WE NEED TO PUT A STOP TO THAT ( AS IN THE LONG LINES )
I live in San Diego County and on the news, they were showing a polling booth in a Mexican grocery store. My grandma's polling booth was in the lobby of her retirement home, and she lives in the bay area. I voted two weeks before the election via absentee ballot.
I vote by mail in California even though I live across the street from a polling place. I just like getting my ballot mailed to me and taking my time in private. And I always have the option of walking it across the street if I don't get it in the mail in time.
Next election I'll be a resident of Oregon, so it'll be mail only. You know the vote by mail system in Oregon was put into place by a ballot measure.
Personally, I think Oregon has the smartest idea. Especially so for people who have to stand in line for hours; they'd vote for that!
When I lived in San Diego county, we walked down the street and voted in a neighbor's garage. Never a line, but always people, that you knew, hanging out.
Someone give the GOP a kick the are stuck in campaign mode...."lying mode"
My brother's garage in San Francisco is a voting booth - I just discovered this, and I think it's so cool. Now that is democracy in practice!
Can you send a picture of that? What neighborhood? I was saying just today that I voted once in a garage in San Francisco.