Election Day Problems?

[progressnerd.livejournal.com]

I figure you might enjoy a thread for your Election Day problems and oddities. I'll start with one of mine: Why exactly are poll workers instructing voters to remove their ballots entirely from the privacy sleeves before feeding them into the optical scan machines? The point of the privacy sleeve is to ensure your vote isn't bought or coerced, so removing it where it's in plain view entirely defeats the purpose. If you're going to ask us to remove it, might as well not give us one at all. I disobeyed the instruction and fed in my ballot directly from the sleeve, without a hitch as usual. I've tried calling the Elections Department to ask about this bizarre practice, but not surprisingly, I just get a busy signal.

Any problems you found?

Comments

[ron_newman]

At Dilboy VFW, the machine could not extract my ballot from the privacy sleeve until I pulled it out part way.

[sapphira-altair.livejournal.com]

Same experience at Dilboy VFW.

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

Same, but I didn't mind.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

I noticed they had two different kinds of privacy sleeves there. I had the kind where the top 3 inches or so of the ballot stuck out even when the ballot was all the way in the sleeve, but it looked like the other sleeves (which covered more? all? of the ballot) could be problematic.

[ron_newman]

Mine covered the whole ballot. Either there was too much friction, or the roller mechanism in the ballot box was not strong enough to remove the ballot. I don't know which.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

Did you privacy sleeve have a window in it that ran almost the length of the sleeve? Because the worker at my polling place pushed the ballot out of the privacy sleeve by inserting his index finger in the window and pushing the ballot out of the sleeve into the machine. It worked fine. And the worker couldn't see my ballot.

[ron_newman]

I don't think so, but I frankly can't recall for sure.

[mrpet.livejournal.com]

Mine fed in just fine. The person in front of me (at Dilboy) was told to take it out of the sleeve and feed it in (in plain view) When they started to tell me to do it that way I just ignored them and fed it in like I always have. I almost has to smack the hand of the person in line behind me who was trying to be helpful and push (re: smash) my ballot into the machine. I'm sorry but no one is touching my ballot but me.