Notes on votes.

[vakkotaur]

There is just enough snow to cover the ground here, and it's still coming down. It seems a light snowfall for rate, but it could go on a while. That seems not to have affected voter turnout. I got to the polling place between 7:30 and 8:00 AM, a bit later than desired due to a school bus - something I normally don't have to deal with on my morning drives. Unlike most years, especially non-presidential election years, it seemed crowded. At the station I needed (Ward 1, Precinct 2) the booths were fully occupied when I walked in.

As I moved earlier this year, I had to fill out a new registration form showing where I was now, where I had been, and confirming the move was sufficiently far back in time. When this was done and found to be in order I was given the ballots. Yes, ballots. One regular big sheet with races on two sides and a fill in the oval system for machine readability, and a small supplemental ballot to vote [X] for the U.S. Senate candidate. When I had the ballots there was an open booth, which I promptly used.

After voting, the supplemental ballot was dropped into the collection box at the precinct table - much as things have been here in other years. But the main ballot (which had the senate race crossed out with a yellow highlighter) was not collected at the precinct table. Instead it was taken (by me) to a central machine for deposit. There was no indication of counting the vote there, though it may have. There was a line, and it took a bit longer than expected as the machine rejected one of the ballots ahead of me - apparently somebody voted for more candidates in a race than was permissible and the machine caught it.

Another difference from earlier years is that this time I was not given a little red 'I VOTED' sticker.

[ADDENDUM: They are doing that bit this year after all. Just saw someone with such a sticker. Guess I was still early or the folks for my precinct were too busy or something.]

Considering the early time of day and the weather, the number of folks voting was unusually high - likely due to the senate race. The crowd I saw was mainly middle aged and elderly. It made for slow going getting out of the building, and there was sufficient parking lot traffic to make getting in and out a bit frustrating. I should have parked far from the building and walked across the lot, but I took an open space in front of the building when I arrived.

I expect most results will be known tonight, with the exception being the senate race in which the supplemental ballots must all be hand counted.

Comments

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

Hand counting the Senate race will be done first, before other races are machine-counted. No results will be known until pretty late.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Aha, I see that a place can't report results until they have all results for all races. So while they do not need to count to count the senate race first, there is no reason to count anything before it.