From: "Glenn Meadows" 

Election day should be a NATIONAL holiday, polls open for the entire day,
24 hours.  Midnight to midnight.  Retail stores closed.  Only things open
gas stations so people can have the whole day to get their respective
poling places and cast their vote.

When I early voted last Thursday, the line was 1.5 hours long at 4PM in the
afternoon, and was just as long when we got thru at 5:30.

They only had 5 voting machines setup at the early voting location though.
I asked why so few machines with such a large turnout, they said it was
more getting people to work the polls to check people in, and check against
the voter registration rolls.

Since the polls were open for anyone in the county to go to any early
polling place, they had computers connected to the main voter registration
database to verify you, as well as check off that you had already voted.  I
don't know if the same will be true tomorrow (Tuesday), since you have to
vote at your regular polling place, and they then would most likely have
localized lists to use for people registered to vote at that location.

I have a friend who works in the IT dept for the county, and he mentioned
that they use an encrypted VPN to connect the remote computers into the
voter registration database.  As to how secure all that is, I haven't a
clue though.

The machines were the Votetronic touchscrren models, new this year.  Seemed
pretty thorough with checks at each point as to display for you who exactly
your vote was going to be registered for, large type, very visible, lots of
chances to cancel, review, go back, change, etc.  As touched the screen, a
very large CHECK mark appeared right in the box where you touched, and that
persons name was highlighted.  There also was NO option to just click
Democrat/Republican straight ticket.  You had to make a choice (or not) in
each race.  At the end, if you had NOT selected a candidate in any
particular race, you were shown that you had NOT selected a candidate in
that race, and asked if you wanted to change/go back and select a
candidate, all before you cast your vote.  Casting the vote, was a 2 or 3
step process. Once you were on the last page, a large VOTE mechanical
button at the top of the machine started flashing.  When you pushed that, a
large VOTE button appeared on screen to confirm that you were ready to cast
your vote, again with a review of who you had voted for.  When you touched
that, then the machine displayed a large "Vote Committed", then
went back to the opening screen, waiting for a poll worker to select the
district slate for you.

When you registered, you were give a slip of paper, that the poll worker
used to pull up the correct "polling place ballot" for you, that
was for your specific district.

--

Glenn M.
"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:454a8d75{at}w3.nls.net...
No one is required to vote that gets a flu shot. That's just like when
Republicans complain how unfair it is that auto workers have election day
off. The Republican party comes off as a party that wishes to discourage
voting rather than one that cherishes the right of every citizen to vote

  "Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:454a8b74$1{at}w3.nls.net...

  Its not a law passed just for this Rich.  Its a long standing law, that
just happens to apply to this.

  Gary

  Rich Gauszka wrote:
First - no one given a shot is required to vote. Second - they could have
just suspended the shots for the day/time of the vote. But no - they are so
afraid of minorities people voting that they would rather discourage any
assemblage even days before.

I suppose next time they'll pass a law that says no free flu shots before
the 2nd week of November.

The Democrats do stupid things at the polls also. I just hate all the
bullshit justification coming from both sides regarding an election.  In
Detroit it happens to be cries of racism when a Republican challenger
inquires why no one is checking IDs at the polling location.


"Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:454a79b3$1{at}w3.nls.net...
  Its the law.  Giving somebody booze, cigarettes, money, gold, or a flu
shot is paying for somebody to vote and violated a very specific statute
applicable to that region.

Its also bullshit they were trying to reach medically undeserved areas.
They were trying to pay people to come vote.

Gary


Phil Payne wrote:
    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/4304540.html

"Mayor Bill White ordered a halt Wednesday to the city health department's
privately funded drive to offer flu vaccinations at early voting sites in
predominantly Hispanic and black neighborhoods, amid conservative criticism
that the effort would boost Democratic turnout.

About 1,300 flu shots were given to people age 50 or older in the past three
days under the program, which didn't require the recipients to vote. Health
officials said they were only trying to reach people in medically
underserved communities."

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