tuscl

Voting in person in California

Wednesday, October 14, 2020 2:31 PM
Mail-in ballots have been sent throughout the state and voting by mail has started a week or two ago. I live in San Diego and have a preference to vote in person. On the day that ballots arrived, a little more than a week ago, in-person voting opened up at the registrar of voters office. I was ready to go do this today and, at the last minute, I wanted to go online and see the exact location address so I did a google search for the office. The google search came up with a lot of links about the office but none of them had the office. Even when I clicked the Maps link in google, it came out not found. The only address information came back as PO Boxes. Luckily, I had my sample ballot and saw an address and typed that into google. This time I was was able to see the location on Google maps and the little marker on the map for the registrar of voters. On my way to vote, there were several "checkpoints" stopping cars to take their mail-in ballot. I wanted to vote like I had all my life in person in a booth. I hesitated at the first "checkpoint" and then drove by the others that were in the last couple of blocks at the location. Once I found the "vote here" sign, I had to make another 3 stops to get my presence to vote recorded, an electronic card for the voting machine and an envelope with a printed label identifying me as the voter to insert my printed ballot. It seems that the whole experience was set up to discourage in-person voting and tricking the average voter to succumb to a mail-in vote.

29 comments

  • IceyLoco
    4 years ago
    I haven't seen that. Was it legit or Trump supporters discouraging voting?
  • RandomMember
    4 years ago
    My voting story from Colorado: (1We got our ballots on time through the mail. We filled them out immediately
  • mike710
    4 years ago
    It was, as I described, systematic. It was just how they had set up the voting and likely drawn up by State and County leaders. You can Google "San Diego County Registrar of Voters" and good luck finding an address for this office. Luckily, I knew about where it was as I vote there all the time. I also had a return address on my sample ballot. It has never been this way over the past 4 or 5 elections.
  • RandomMember
    4 years ago
    My voting story from Colorado: (1We got our ballots on time through the mail. We filled them out immediately...and dropped them in a steel ballot box. There's ballot tracking, and my wife's ballot was accepted, but mine showed "received" instead of "accepted." Apparently my signature failed an automated reader. My ballot goes to a team of "judges" next. I called and told them in no uncertain terms that I would show up in person with an ID if this was not resolved within one week.
  • mike710
    4 years ago
    Your situation is why I wanted to vote in person. In CA, if you don't vote in a presidential election you have to re-register. I was expecting lines but not "checkpoints" that continually encouraged mail-in voting rather than in-person voting. I even asked the lady who gave me my voter card and entered me in the computer. She had seen the same thing about googling the address. Probably because she was a temp worker and needed to find it to apply for the job and go to work the first day.
  • IceyLoco
    4 years ago
    Mailing it in is safer. But you voted. Your ballot should list the nearest address.
  • RandomMember
    4 years ago
    It's outrageous that I signed my ballot and up to human "judges" to tell whether it's valid.
  • Warrior15
    4 years ago
    Does anyone think Trump has a chance in California ? And I didn't know that Random has a wife ! Is same-sex marriage allowed in Colorado ?
  • winex
    4 years ago
    A REALISTIC change? Oh hell no. The last Republican Presidential candidate to win California was George HW Bush in 1998. And he only won because he was still riding President Reagan's coattails. As for gay marriage, the Supreme Court forced that on everyone several years ago. So much for states rights.
  • mike710
    4 years ago
    I don't think Trump will come close to winning CA but I think people are pissed off enough about permanent shutdowns that he might do a little better than last time. Also, by the next election, it is likely that CA will lose some congressional seats/electoral college votes. People have been leaving the state for a while but it accelerated since Covid hit. Now a lot of CA tech workers have moved out of state and this could end up being a permanent thing since it's usually easier for tech workers to work from anywhere.
  • pistola
    4 years ago
    ^Hell no. That state is so ass backwards... Here is a very interesting map from 2016, you can even search for a strip club and it’ll take you to that precinct. Fun to search for your favorite clubs and see if they are in a red or blue area... [view link]
  • winex
    4 years ago
    @Mike710 - the tech outward migration is a real thing. Companies like Facebook, Microsoft and a twitter have announced that they will support full time remote work. With the cost of housing, taxes, and everything else in California combined with nightmarish traffic, it makes no sense to live there if you can avoid it.
  • Papi_Chulo
    4 years ago
    I believe in-person early-voting starts the 19th in my county (Miami Dade) - I ordered a mail-in ballot kinda as a last resort in case the lines are too ridiculous (I also live in a very densely populated area so I assume there will be long lines especially with all the Cubans down here fired up) - maybe I'll look for an early-voting location farther away in the county (it's a pretty-big county) where there may be less people b/c around my crib everything is usually congested voting-location or not) - I wonder if there's online info w.r.t. how busy individual locations are. @M710 How long was your wait to vote?
  • winex
    4 years ago
    Of course the question with the Electoral College is “how much of the out migration has been captured by the Census?” The trend is larger and will last longer than the population count will.
  • winex
    4 years ago
    @Papi - keep those Cubans fired up! Your liberty depends on it. FOUR MORE YEARS!!!
  • mike710
    4 years ago
    @Papi. Actually, once I cleared all the hurdles, it was quit quick (as in no line). The in-person discouragement campaign is really working. I had to fill out a form that was intended for "absentee voting" at the first stop. Next I had to wait to be called to the door. Once in the door, I went to a window where I was looked up on the computer and I was given an ATM looking card for the voting machine. In the room with the booths, there were only half a dozen people and dozens of open voting machines. I voted, printed my ballot, inserted it into the envelope and had someone check that I had sealed it, signed it and dated it. Next to another desk on the way out where they took back their card, a borrowed pen and made sure my evelope was signed and sealed before putting it in the ballot box. All in all, it took less than a half hour to get through and I was home on an hour, including roundtrip travel. Only the main registrar office is available for in-person voting right now. On Halloween, the polling place on my sample ballot will open through election day. That place will probably have a line.
  • misterorange
    4 years ago
    In NJ we are not allowed to use voting machines. It's much too dangerous with the Covid thing going on. You can stand in line at the liquor store, that's not dangerous. The other day I stood in line at a busy sandwich shop for about 20 minutes. Not dangerous at all. But voting in person... that's very, very, very dangerous. You could get sick and die. Apparently, anyone in NJ who wants to vote in person either has a personal death wish, or wishes a gruesome death upon others. Thank you Governor Murphy for keeping me safe at the polls.
  • winex
    4 years ago
    Given that liberal idiots vote for liberals, it’s not terribly surprising that liberal politicians believe they need to think for their constituents.
  • TheeOSU
    4 years ago
    "It's outrageous that I signed my ballot and up to human "judges" to tell whether it's valid." What's even more outrageous is that an alley whore from Calcutta that snuck in the country is even allowed to have a ballot. Regarding validity you can always revert to your old stand by of letting the judges assfuck you to verify who you are. Dipshit!
  • misterorange
    4 years ago
    With mail-in voting it really doesn't matter if you mail it, put it in an authorized "drop box" or hand deliver it to the county Division of Elections, they all end up in the same place. Your "ballot" is not signed or identified with you in any way (only the envelope is). A person has to physically open it and put your ballot in a stack with all the others. Then when the stack gets high enough, some other person collects the stack and walks them over to the scanning machine and feeds them in. They don't know who you are, but they sure as shit know who you voted for. It's easy, just look at the little oval filled in next to Trump or Biden. Now I'm not saying there's any chance of corruption, because there's no way a minimum wage temporary poll worker would do anything dishonest, but if that person walked under a ceiling fan and two ballots (or two thousand ballots) happened to blow off the stack and land behind an old file cabinet, or in a garbage pail, that would be a terrible accident. The "tracking" that RandomMember mentioned does show your ballot being received, and then accepted (or not) and you should have the opportunity to correct it. What "tracking" will never show you is a confirmation that your vote was actually counted or verify who you voted for. Once the ballot is out of the envelope, it's just another piece of paper with little circles colored in. It's impossible for you or anyone else to know how or if your vote was processed.
  • Papi_Chulo
    4 years ago
    "... What "tracking" will never show you is a confirmation that your vote was actually counted or verify who you voted for ..." Yeah - that *is* fucked-up - as important as they all claim the vote is, there is no way to know for sure your vote was counted.
  • pistola
    4 years ago
    OT: Y’all see Kamala make an ass out of herself today? Dafuk kind of job interview was that? Ok rant over.
  • winex
    4 years ago
    No, do you have a link? I have been busy watching Coastal Carolina - Louisiana Lafayette since I got off work.
  • pistola
    4 years ago
    Just go to YT and search Kamala Barrett. Longest is 30 minutes, 27 of them Kamala giving a press release. But when Barrett did talk she made Kamala look dumb. KH tried to play prosecutor on her, which was kind of lame considering...
  • Papi_Chulo
    4 years ago
    These Libs have lost their marbles - not only are they "seeing racism everywhere" where their isn't; but they are so batshit crazy w/ racism that next thing you know they are going to be accusing aliens of being racist. Just saw a snippet on TV and I see a Libertard saying that long voting lines are voter-suppression against black and brown people - as if white people don't have to make the same lines - SMFH.
  • IceyLoco
    4 years ago
    Harris owned Barrett. Barrett holed up and feigned ignorance and evaded answering any questions. She had no valid arguments whatsoever. Which makes her an even more potential danger to the American public.
  • misterorange
    4 years ago
    Back OT regarding mail-in ballots. I handed in my ballot directly to the county Board of Elections office. Within hours the website was updated to status "Received." Great! Now it's been 3 weeks and it still has not changed to "Accepted," which would mean there were no issues with my signature or anything else. I just called them and they said it won't show as Accepted until after election day. I asked what good is that, and she said "they don't update the website, but if there was a problem I would have been notified by mail." Yeah right, that gives me a lot of confidence. If I don't receive a letter I should just "assume" everything is good. Not to mention the fact that with the Primary election, it said Accepted long before election day. My wife didn't receive a ballot and we discovered that they had her listed as "inactive" even though she's voted in every recent general election. Got it corrected and it finally arrived this week. She's away on business until middle of next week, so there will be very little time if, for some reason, there were to be a problem with her ballot after she turns it in. We have both voted regularly for decades and have not changed our address for 14 years. I can't imagine how many problems there are for people who recently moved, changed name due to marriage or divorce, unknowingly listed as "inactive" but still waiting for a ballot to arrive, elderly people who maybe have a hard time with the multiple envelopes and complicated directions, or maybe their signature doesn't look quite the same due to arthritis, etc., etc. And two weeks ago we had a mailman arrested and fired for not delivering mail and instead throwing it in dumpsters, which included 99 mail-in ballots. Luckily it was recovered and they were eventually delivered.
  • RandomMember
    4 years ago
    @Orange: "I just called them and they said it won't show as Accepted until after election day" ----------------------------------------- What @Orange is going through is outrageous. My ballot signature initially failed an automated scan -- but a human judge ruled it valid yesterday. Both of our ballots have been marked "accepted." Colorado has steel drop-boxes all over the place and our ballot-tracking website is manned with chats that are very responsive, with no waiting. We have some of the best ballot-processing in the nation.
  • skibum609
    4 years ago
    Ballot processing = cheating by another name.
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