I VOTED TODAY VIA MAIL-IN BALLOT

[dales]

I hope my filling out the ballot in crayon does not hinder the legibility.

[Joe Guy]

Your crayon ballot may not be valid. If Gavin Newsom wins by one vote, it might be your fault.

[eddieq]

I voted today. Number 75. My kids were numbers 78 and 80. No crayons but I did push the buttons with my elbow so I may not have voted for the trump candidates like all middle class white men are supposed to.

[Big RR]

I voted around 6:45 (45 minutes after the polls opened) and was number 104 (although I am unsure whether the two separate stations for my precinct are numbered separately or together); the highest previous number I ever got (I sually vote at the same time every election), was in the low 80s. We didn't have a long line, but the flow was pretty steady for that early in the morning.

And eddie, using your criteria, I guess I didn't vote like a middle class white man either.

[Lord Jim]

I may not have voted for the trump candidates like all middle class white men are supposed to.

I guess I didn't vote like a middle class white man either.

You guys just aren't angry enough...

Either that, or you must be "self-loathing" white men, like wes insisted that I am...

[Crackpot]

I’m voting after work. Rumor has it that the polls are crowded around here.

[BoSoxGal]

I was going to go early, but decided instead to go this evening when my cousin and her husband get home from work - so if there is a line, I'll have some company. In 2016 I voted after work and it was very lightly trafficked, so it will be interesting to see what the polls are like this year.

Of course there is not much at stake here in Massachusetts, where the blue candidates are polling way ahead except for the Governor's race, where Charlie Baker (70% approval rating in a very blue state; Joe Scarborough even mentioned him this morning as a possible uniter of the GOP post-Trump) has something like 30 points on his Democratic challenger.

Probably the biggest issues of contention at the polls here this election are the ballot questions on mandated nurse/patient ratios and preserving the recently enacted legislation prohibiting discrimination against transgender persons in public accommodations.

[Lord Jim]

I'm going to go around 10...

I've never seen it crowded at that time, (after the before work folks, and before the lunchtime voters) and I don't expect it will be today either, since there aren't any hotly contested races on the ballot out here.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I'm not sure how I feel about mail-in ballots. Of course for people who are away from home for the poll, and there should be guaranteed free delivery from USPS to the counting authority for votes cast (say) two days before the deadline. International mail in for military and diplomatic folk could be done electronically with no great technical effort.

I'd also like to see all polling places open for the same time everywhere - say 7AM to 7PM mountain time just to pick somewhere in the middle. That means of course 3AM to 3PM Hawaii time but I'm sure they will cope for one day every couple of years. Same with Guam - 1AM to 1PM I think. This will relieve us of the effect of votes in California being cast or not cast depending on what is going on in Florida.

[BoSoxGal]

I don't know why anyone would object to mail-in ballots. You can renew your vehicle registration by mail, you can file your federal income taxes by mail (or online, so online voting should be an option too, IMHO), you can pay your property taxes by mail. Why not vote by mail? It's actually very cost effective for the states who do it, and obviously it's incredibly convenient for voters. Yes there is something special about going to the polls, but for a very great many people the requirement of voting in person is an effective disenfranchisement because of conflicts with work, transportation, care of children or elders or disabled family members, etc. There are a great many legitimate reasons to be considered absentee beyond being out of state or out of the country on Election Day.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Yes of course for disabled and elderly - anyone who has a reasonable impediment to voting in person. There is, as you say, something special about waiting in line with fellow citizens some of whom may not vote the way you do, but whom you possibly never run into because you go to different movies and bars and schools etc. Might help to dissolve a little of the 'deplorable' and 'libtard' rhetoric. Yes I can shop on line and do my taxes on line - but, for example, I can't yet get my six monthly teeth cleaning done on line. I don't feel particularly inconvenienced by the fact that my dentist has not yet figured it out.

I think that there are benefits to the political process as a whole for requiring in-person voting where possible. I think companies should give reasonable time off to their employees to vote* and there is no reason why a large company - say a location with several hundred employees - could not have a voting place on site. They do it for blood drives and flu shots - why not for voting? The portion of the population that actually votes is shockingly low. Maybe rural communities could be served by some sort of traveling polling place so locals need only travel to the post office or the Walmart and not ten miles to the nearest town.

And BTW over the last 30 odd years of my career, despite not being a citizen and therefore not voting, I have always given my people, hourly or salaried, whatever time they needed to get to their voting places. AFAIK it was never abused. Of course that's a white collar professional environment; but we had the same pressures to make money every month as did any other business. An hour or so every couple of years is, as far as costs are concerned, in the noise and insignificant.

[Joe Guy]

I'm not sure how I feel about mail-in ballots. Of course for people who are away from home for the poll, and there should be guaranteed free delivery from USPS to the counting authority for votes cast (say) two days before the deadline.....

In my county the mail-in ballots are postage paid. The ballot has to be post marked on or before election day to be counted. Many elderly and/or disabled people and people without transportation (or semi-lazy people*) wouldn't be able to vote without mail-in ballots.

*me

[Big RR]

My feeling is that anything which can increase turnout is a good thing, including mail in ballots. I wouldn't distribute them too much time to be certain everyone is voting from the same information (especially if something is revealed shortly before election day), but I see no reason to prevent people from voting by mail; and while I enjoy my annual (or biannual) trips to the polls, I'd rather have all voting done by mail than in person. Yes, there are some fraud issues which would have to be dealt with (such as someone marking and mailing someone else's ballot in) and we will have to deal with them, but I do think we are all better off when more people vote (even if I disagree with the result at times). that's the way democracy should work IMHO.

[Econoline]

(As I mentioned in another thread, I voted early - 2 weeks ago.)

[BoSoxGal]

[RayThom]

This is interesting:

... Generally speaking, mail-in votes tend to skew Republican, in part because mail-in voting is popular with older voters. Some states make it easy for older people to vote by mail but harder for younger people to do so: In Michigan, for example, anyone over 60 can get an absentee ballot. In-person early votes tend to favor Democrats..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/p ... terms.html

Years ago, a county poll official mentioned that when Election Day turn out is much larger than expected the vote usually skews Democrat.

All things considered, and without getting all "Pelosied up" I feel the Democrats are on the verge of a banner day. And at worse, I doubt if the results will be excessively frightening. Hey, we live with Trump as president, we're used to disappointment.

[BoSoxGal]

I feel the Democrats are on the verge of a banner day.

If that's true, then the whole country is on the verge of a banner day - because this is about rescuing our government from Trumpism, which isn't anything like traditional conservative Republicanism.

I've been gratified to see how many of my conservative friends in Montana have been posting about crossing the aisle to vote blue as a protest of Trumpism and the failing of GOP politicians to hold Trump accountable; I hope that phenomenon is widespread.

[Crackpot]

Was ballot 635 and vote 633 in my precinct

[Sue U]

I have become more pessimistic about the outcome; from what I can see in the disgustingly biased fake-news unfair mainstream media, it seems that the motivated Republican voters simply do not care about whether Trump, his surrogates and/or their congressional/senatorial candidates are lying about virtually every issue (taxes, healthcare, the Supreme Court, Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, immigrant "invasion," Socialism, etc.); they just want to buy whatever story the GOP is selling, regardless of facts and empirical evidence. It is pure unthinking tribalism, cynically stoked by ginning up fear of imaginary threats.

[Big RR]

Sue, I'll share your pessimism if the results go Trump's way; I find it hard to believe that many people can be deluded, and think that such a result might make me reconsider my views on whether our democracy is viable, but let's hope it doesn't come to that. Sure, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but I have to sincerely hope that that proportion of the electorate is not that large. I guess we will see in a few hours.