The new machines are a freaking nightmare and I highly doubt my vote will even count!
I was the first voter to show up at my polling place. Voting was supposed to begin exactly at 12:00 PM. The machine wasn't ready at noon, when voting was supposed to begin. At around 12:10, the lady finally started looking for my name in the book & couldn't find it. This happened to me in the 2004 election, despite my having voted in every election and primary here since 1996, so I spoke up. They made me fill out a damned absentee ballot that year and I'm still pissed off about it since, you know, they don't count those until after the election & they are meaningless unless the outcome is in dispute. Another poll worker came after a few minutes and found my name, it was in a different book.
People who got into line behind me left without voting. Then they had trouble finding the right ballot to give me. Eventually I got my ballot and filled in the dots. The machine still wasn't working, they said the monitor was inoperative. They took my ballot anyway and said it would be entered as an "emergency ballot", whatever that means.
The first time the young man put it into the machine, it got spit back out & he said there was an error message. Not that I could see, because I wasn't allowed anywhere near the freaking machine. Then a woman who had been on the phone trying to find out how to fix the machine came over and had him insert it a different way and it went in. It was after 12:30 pm by the time my vote, the first of the day there, had been cast. I have no idea if it will even count.
Before I left, one of the poll workers disclosed to me that they had only been allowed to even start setting up the room at 11:30, a half an hour before go time, and as I said, they weren't ready at 12:00 PM when the polls are supposed to start accepting votes. 40 minutes of my life wasted and my vote most likely disenfranchised, again.
I think it's deliberate. According to The NY Post and my local paper, the Poughkeepsie Journal, what happened at my polling place was definitely NOT an isolated incident, it has been all fucked up STATE-WIDE.
They better get their shit together before November, or there's gonna be all kinds of hell raised, some of it certainly will be raised by yours truly.
Cross-posted at Associated Content, with slightly less cursing
8 comments:
Just.... wow.....
Marianne, this is unacceptable!! I was at the OC Taxpayer party HQ all day (phone banking for Carl!) and we were hearing the same. Some polls due to open at noon didn't open until 3 p.m.! Some that were to open at 6 a.m. had no machines up at 6:30 a.m. and elderly poll people not having a clue. There was no dry run and test because the state did not want to pay people for an extra day, so NY state just decided to F up majorly!! What did the state care?? The only action was on the Republican side and we know how the state feels about us extremist terrorist Tea Partiers!
I went late in the day and it was great, I got to feed my sheet in it's modesty folder into the machine myself and verify on the screen that it was read and registered correctly. I'm beyond disgusted at the incompetence, errors and what definitely appears to be a concerted effort at a new form of voter fraud and disenfranchisement!!
I don't know how many votes for Malpass and Berntsen were lost, but Carl won going away - nothing was going to stop him. WOOT!!!
I'm in NJ, but the level of rank incompetence displayed by NY makes me sick at heart.
Jack, it's pretty breathtaking even for a Dem-run state, isn't it? I think Rangel must be involved. He's involved in everything corrupt and incompetent in this state. ;-)
I'm still totally pissed off over it. I lost my right to a secret ballot when after the first attempt by the worker (not me, I wasn't allowed near the fucking machine) to feed my ballot failed, they took it out of the folder and fucking stared at it and also had it in plain view of everyone in the room before they fed it on again, as an emergency ballot! Luckily there was only one other voter in the room, a fellow Republican, but the point still stands, my privacy was violated.
There was only one other voter there because people behind me in line left in disgust without voting.
I wonder how many Di Carlo votes were lost? it was actually pretty close between him & Hayward. He should no concede until they are counted and he should demand they get counted manually.
MY MOTHER was completely disenfranchised in Nassau County. She's a registered Republican and votes absentee due to her age and disabilities. NO BALLOT was ever sent to her to vote in the GOP Primary! She called the Board of Elections and they said she CAN'T vote in the primary because she's "not in a party" but that was BULLSHIT because she has been a registered republican for at least as long as I've been alive - that's nearly 4 decades!
Yikes! I was disenfranchised from at least 2 primaries because they said I was not a registered Republican, though I registered Rep. for the 1998 elections and never changed it. I had to re-register Rep. 3 times over about 6 years to finally have it take. I think the NYSBOE disenfranchises so many voters it might be incalculable!
I thought DiCarlo-Hayworth was not close. If it was he absolutely should contest it! Yesterday in too many areas was a DISASTER! It was everything we feared for so many people.
Very upset about Berntsen. Cannot fathom how Townsend won that. He couldn't beat Schmucky with a shovel so if we don't take the Senate that CRAPTASTIC will become Majority Leader. I do believe Angle will beat Dingy Harry.
NY 23 was close. I hope Hoffman isn't as quick to concede this time as he was last time around - had he held out for a recount last time, he'd have gotten the job and we may have had a better chance to stop Obamacare.
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