 Today I have on my Music for America shirt that reads "Voters Make Better Lovers" and an "I Voted" sticker proudly on it.
I just got back from driving around to 5 polling locations with a friend. Before I headed out to vote I decided to drop by the Obama office. I picked up my precinct to go door hang when they got an urgent call. The campaign had been getting reports across the state from Decline-to-State voters who were being told by poll workers that they could not vote for president. They grabbed a random sample of precincts and sent volunteers out to check on them.
We were given a precinct at a church in Rancho Cordova, a short drive East on 50. We saw another polling location within a couple blocks and stopped in there. Then we hit up a mega church that was two polling locations in one. At all of them, the poll workers knew the drill. The only thing troubling was one poll worker who told us adamantly that a voter could switch party registration on the spot to pull a different ballot.
When I was waiting in line at my polling place, a church just a few blocks away from my apartment a young guy walked back up to the desk with his ballot in his hand and said "I wanted to vote for president, but it is not on here." The poll worker then asked if he wanted a Democratic ballot. He said yes and they destroyed the non-partisan ballot he started to fill out. The guy has to be one of many, who despite our best efforts, didn't know he had to ask first. Good thing he didn't just fill out the vote, turn it in and then ask and also that the poll workers knew the drill. After he was handed the Democratic ballot one of the other poll workers lamented that they were explicitly instructed not to automatically ask DTS voters if they wanted a Democratic or American Independent ballot. That is something that really needs to change. I don't understand why they don't do that in the first place.
This is a thread for anybody who wants to talk about their voting experiences, especially folks in Sacto.
I should add that I asked the poll workers in all of the locations about turnout. Nothing remarkable. Turnout was neither low, nor really heavy. About 120 people had already voted at my precinct, a Democratic neighborhood in Midtown. |
