My WTF moment at the Voting precinct

[MagickMuffin]

I had to share my experience when I went to vote.

Back Story:

First, let me explain that I have lived in the same house for 25 years. I have always voted at our rec. center, until the city renovated it and we were moved from one location to another. We have voted at a police sub-station, as well as a church. This renovation has taken several years to complete, and was finally finished this year. :bounce:

Yesterday:

Before I went to vote I looked at our city's website to find out where I would be voting this year. Couldn't find anything there, so I called my library. They did a search and informed me I would be voting at the Rec. Ctr. :woohoo: :woohoo: , I loved voting @ the REC, hated voting at the other two locations.

We get to the polls and I show my ID, and even before the Ms.Dumb Ass :grr: had a chance to look for my name, exclaimed I was not on the roll :wtf:, and that Ms. Kim would be able to help me find my precinct. Ms. Kim was an Asian woman who was sitting behind this strange wooden box (4X4X4) that had a computer inside (?), I couldn't see exactly what was in there as the opening was not facing me. :grr: :nuke:

While Ms. Kim was searching, I continued to have a dialog with the Ms. Dumb Ass who told me I was not on the rolls. I told her I had been voting at that precinct for years until they renovated, that I called the library and they told me to go to the Rec. Ctr. She was still claiming that I was not on there. She didn't even look! :grr:

Ms. Kim informed me and my partner that we were at the right precinct. I immediately informed Ms.Dumb Ass that I was at the right precinct. She looked bewildered, and she was having a hard time even looking in the right letter in the book, (M) is where she needed to look under. And what do you know there we were like always. :banghead:

What really made me question why someone like Ms. Dumb Ass would not even really attempt to look for my name, made me realize how other people must feel to be disenfranchised. I am a white middle aged woman, who just so happened to be wearing my hand painted blue jeans, so my only conclusion to this whole story is she looked at me and decided I was a liberal and therefore she didn't even bother looking for my name because I might be voting for those props that was against. :shrug: She would have been right.

[Poet Lariat]

1. Makes you wonder

My wife had an unusual experience during early voting a couple of weeks ago. Prior to voting, she had asked if any of the voting machines had a "paper verification" of her vote. No one knew the answer to the question and finally she was told that "only on Election Day" was this possible. They suggested that she could better be helped downtown at the main County office. (She added here that some of the Poll Workers looked at her like she was crazy. She thinks they may have been Republicans). She drove downtown to the County office to get her question answered and to file a formal complaint about the "no paper trail". They all freaked out as well and she was sent on a wild goose chase in front of 4 different people. She was finally told that there was no current way to verify her vote and was asked if she still wanted to vote. She did and after, filed a formal complaint about her experience. She was told that she would be contacted by "the guy in charge" about her complaint. Two weeks later...no call, no follow-up, no nothing.

......Makes you wonder.

[PDittie]

2. Welcome to DU, P.L.

:hi:

[Poet Lariat]

3. Preciate it PDittie

My wife and I have been reading DU for a few months now and are smarter, stronger and (I think...somehow) slightly better looking as a result of the experience. Great to be here!

[Flying Dream Blues]

5. Welcome, Poet Lariat! Love your name! nt

[Poet Lariat]

6. Thanks for another warm welcome

My "handle" may be my best poetry.

[MagickMuffin]

4. it's amazing to me

how easy it is to discourage people from voting. Just throw up as many roadblocks/obstacles and maybe we will just give up.

I refuse to let these people intimidate me. Although I don't care to much for confrontation, if I feel threatened then I will most certainly defend myself, and my right to vote.

I suppose our best line of defense is to demand to see these peoples id's. We should have that right to identify them, since they are there to indentify us. Seems only fair.

I hope you can get some sort of results from your complaints. Keep us posted?

[Poet Lariat]

7. Ahhhh.....the discouragement factor

Think of how many voters could end up not voting because of even subtle discouragement or perceived intimidation. I wonder if the voting officials who participate in this behavior do it because of a dislike for the opposition or a carefully scripted Fax received the night before the election.

[Bullwinkle925]

8. I have one question.........

As I was reading through your experience (horrible as it was) I had to wonder why you needed to say that Ms. Kim was an Asian woman while Ms. Dumb Ass remained racially anonymous? Living in the SF Bay Area, I automatically would assume that 'Kim' was an Asian name. That could be totally racist on my part.

:shrug:


I'm also sorry to hear that TX refused to recognize same-sex marriage.
Unfortunately, I'm not surprised.
Again, I could be stereotyping??

self-edited.

[MagickMuffin]

9. oops ((self deleted posted twice))

[MagickMuffin]

10. I guess I wasn't thinking

when I only identified Ms. Kim's race, while neglecting to identify Ms. Dumb Ass who happens to be white like me. But she didn't just signal me out she also sent a black couple to visit with Ms. Kim. My apologies, for sending the wrong signals, it certainly wasn't my intentions!

My community is a diversified culture, although it has not always been that way. We only just allowed alcohol to be sold here the last election. We were what is classified around these parts as being a dry city. :beer:

And a real proud part of the bible belt buckle.
:sarcasm:

[Bullwinkle925]

11. Oh - no apologies needed. I just wanted to open a discourse

regarding racial issues. I find myself now intentionally leaving out a persons' ethnicity whenever possible. I don't know why we feel the need to say blah blah blah (a black woman) blah blah blah (a japanese guy) in our conversations. The only time I would think we need to establish ethnicity is when pointing someone out in a crowd of people.
Otherwise, if I'm just relaying an anecdote, I try to make references to the 'person' only as male or female.
I've been thinking a lot about this and have decided that we are not truly ever going to be a racially equal country if we don't start accepting people in their totality without having to make references to ethnicity. Does that make any sense?
I totally understand the area in which you are living. I'm an ex-Kansan and left that state for the more liberal-thinking area of California a million years ago. Perhaps even before you were born?
When I awoke the morning following the 1968 Presidential election and realized that it was Richard Nixon :puke: , I decided then and there to 'get the heck out of Dodge'.
I have since visited Kansas many, many times (family still residing there) and have been relieved to see Wichita becoming more racially mixed. I was even delighted to see an openly gay person working the registers in one of the Barnes & Noble bookstores. When I lived there
in the 60's - I doubt seriously that would have happened. The person would have resided "in the closet" unhappily.
I've thought of moving to Texas one day - my sister has relocated to
Irving - but I don't know if I will. Time will tell.

:toast:

[Sooner75]

12. I was an election judge in Texas in Nov 04 and Nov 05

You can always complain to the county elections administration.

None of what you described is terribly surprising. On Election Day 2004, I was very, very busy, and I found that the clerk looking up names in the registered voter book was sending people away who were in the book. I had to find her another job, and, after that election, I decided not to ask her to clerk for me again.

Election workers are pretty much paid volunteers. In Tarrant County, election judges get $8/hr and everyone else gets $7.50/hr. I was supposed to have a bilingual clerk, but he/she was a no-show. As a judge, you're lucky if you have good clerks....really lucky if you have experienced clerks.

Everyone just LOVES democracy, but not many people want to work in the actual sausage factory of running a polling place. Every time I drag home at the end of a long election day (started at 6 am and got home at 8:30 pm) I tell myself that I won't do it again. THIS LAST TIME I think WAS my last time.

[MagickMuffin]

13. It's a shame to lose you as an election judge

but I certainly can see why, it's a long day with little or no rewards. I try to make my voting experience enjoyable for everyone that is working there, by being pleasant and courteous, along with a lot of cheer. I consider voting a sacred trust of my citizenship, so it makes me happy & :silly:!

You seem to understand the importance of knowing what to do in the situation, when someone isn't doing their job.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

14. Don't quit.

I'm thinking about signing up for duty in '06.
And welcome to DU ! :hi:

[Sooner75]

15. some thoughts

Well, my withdrawal from working the polling place has more to do with my change of circumstance than disillusionment (though there's a fair amount of that). I'm fixin' to get REAL busy running my own business and takin' a day off to work a 15 hour day for the county isn't going to be an option.

There's been A LOT of discussion about election fraud here in DU. I think it'd make sense for as many DUers as possible to sign up as election workers. That way, we'd have people on the ground who would see that elections are on the up-and-up. The one thing you've got to remember is that when YOU are the election worker you CANNOT be partisan in ANY WAY.

In November 2004, I assisted lots of voters who asked for my help as to how to vote for Bush or to vote straight Republican. I was inwardly dismayed by their choice, but I fervently believe in the notion of democracy. I was there to get those people voted NOT to tell them how they should vote. When they get to the polling place and inside the electioneering distance markers, the chips fall where they may and the choices of the voters have to be accurately recorded and reported.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

16. I was thinking along the lines

of carrying people to the polls, specifically older voters in minority areas. Just helping people get to their polling place, so they can cast their own (un-infuenced by me) vote.