Vote on BOTH SIDES of the paper!

[turil.livejournal.com]

I only just now realized that I didn't see the ballot questions on my ballot. For some reason, they must be on the back of the paper.

I wonder how many other people didn't vote on the questions because they didn't see them on the ballot...

Remember to turn it over!

After waiting over an hour in line, my brain must have turned to mush. I feel ripped off, just slightly, since I really cared about some of those questions, and I spent that hour waiting, and only got to vote for half of the stuff!

Oh well.

But you'll remember to look on the back of the paper, right? :-)

Comments

[ron_newman]

It does say CONTINUED ON BACK at the bottom of the right column, and VOTE BOTH SIDES at the bottom of the ballot.

Somerville sample ballots are here (but the JPG files are large and seem to load very slowly this morning). By not voting the back, you missed questions 2 and 3 (and nonbinding questions 4 and 5 if you're in Denise Provost's district)

[turil.livejournal.com]

And question 1 as well. (And I am in Denise's district, so I did miss those other questions.)

Why would they just stop the voting in the middle of the first page? It's completely abnormal...

[ron_newman]

Unless the sample ballot is different from the real ballot, question 1 is on the front.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Huh, I looked at the picture of ballot again on that website, and see that there were even questions on that first page that I didn't see at all. I just stopped voting when the vote options stopped in the middle of the page, not expecting it to continue ('cause usually when a list of things stops, that means there are no more list items).

Really badly desinged. And not made for people who're not really awake yet.

Oh well.

[skate97.livejournal.com]

On my ballot, question 1 was on the front...

[ursamajor]

Dunno if this was the case where you voted, but they had big signs at the Lowell St. Firehouse saying "VOTE BOTH SIDES OF THE PAPER." So hopefully no one there misses the back :)

(I had my own caffeine-deprived screwup and colored in two arrows where there only should've been one. Dear Starbucks, I needed the coffee *before* I voted, not after!)

[ron_newman]

Hopefully you returned that ballot as spoiled, and got another one. Every voter is allowed to do this twice. I don't know whether Somerville has programmed the ballot box to automatically spit back out an over-voted ballot.

[ursamajor]

I did! A very nice election official walked me through the "I screwed up, what do I do?!" process. And I believe the Somerville ballot boxes do that; the person in front of me had their ballot spit back to them. (I discovered my mistake before I got to that point.)

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Yes they do that. Several people did the "two arrows" thing and the machine was spitting them out a lot. So we got a little mini-lecture in line.

[whitefire.livejournal.com]

If I don't get to smoke weed at the greyhound track because of this I'm going to be very upset.

[ron_newman]

Especially if you have to pay state income tax on the winnings.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

*giggle*

[suzybuzz.livejournal.com]

bahaha. the SHUT DOWN greyhound track

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

By the time I got inside (after an hour and a half in line), they were telling people to check both sides of the ballot.

[haptotrope.livejournal.com]

They had a sign on the table in the Highland Ave Firestation -- and it was starting on the front and "continued on back" on my ballot.

[ron_newman]

There were signs all over at the Dilboy VFW (I think that's your polling place, too?) when I got in around 11:45.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's my polling place. I think there were signs up earlier, too, but I've got a rather bad cold, so all my memories from earlier today are a little dim.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

My ballot had Question 2 half on the front and half on the back, so it wasn't too hard to miss.

Of course, I also voted for H.R. Pufnstuf, so....

[ron_newman]

Mine too. All of the Somerville ballots do.

[ron_newman]

That's odd, since all of the Somerville sample ballots (see link above) have question 1 on the front, question 2 split across the front and back, and the remaining questions on the back. Where do you vote?

[fefie.livejournal.com]

I did not see any signs about voting on the back when I was at the DPW polling place a little while ago but i might have missed them. Perhaps I was too astonished at how quiet it was to notice any signs, having heard about the long lines there earlier. It seemed obvious to me that the ballot continued on the back because as you say, question 2 was split across the front and back. I believe I've seen 2-sided ballots in some previous years as well.

[turil.livejournal.com]

I never even saw question 1, let alone any part of question 2.

I guess when the voting stopped in the middle of the page, I stopped voting, and my brain assumed that all that tiny babble on the right side of the paper was instructions or some such. I suppose I should have expected messy design and prepared to be confused! Me any my overly logical/practical mind not thinking that they'd randomly spread stuff out all over the paper! :-)

[ron_newman]

I dunno, it seemed pretty obvious to me that if text was printed in three columns, I should look at all three. Even the first column doesn't extend all the way to the bottom of the paper.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like I said, my mind is just a bit to practical and logical for something non-flowing like that, especially when I'm really tired and have been standing around doing nothing for an hour. :-)

[obie119.livejournal.com]

Um, if you knew and cared about the questions, then exactly when did you think you would be voting on them? Today? I don't get it.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Brain fried. Not thinking. Just voting. :-)