Voting 08, observations

I went to vote this morning at 8 a.m. The lines were a bit long, but not too much.



The parking lot was full of voters on one side and school parents drop off on the other. The polling place was at a local church, that also housed a Christian school.
It was nice that they had a bit of reserved parking this time. What surprised me though was the rain! I didn't know it was going to rain today.

I now know for certain that all I should do is wash my car and it will rain in SoCal!

A few interesting observations about the vote this year though.

1. For the first time ever, my polling place had black precinct workers. I live in a predominantly white community (historically), I've never seen a black person at the polling place, much less black workers. It seemed odd.

2. A mexican man was trying to vote. They could not find his name on the rolls. It was finally decided that her would be allowed to register and vote today. He was given a form to fill out (He filled it out on a table right next to me as I waited in line) with a 1 inch banner across the top in english stating something about falsifying a registration record being a felony. I noticed the form also had spanish translation on it. The man filled out the form with great difficulty. He was copying what the driver's license he was carrying had on it for information. He was not sure at all about putting the info in the right places and had to ask twice about what should go where. When he got up to ask questions he left the license at the table. Would this be classified as an abnormality at the precinct?

3. The lady, who seemed to be in charge, handed me my ballot and said she had mistakenly torn off the verification barcode and handed me both the ballot and the bar code strip. I asked her if it was a spoiled ballot, she emphatically stated no.

4. The poll worker that checked me in did not have a good command of the alphabet. I told him my name, and then stated my address. He began looking up my first name and told me I was in the wrong line. I told him no, he needed to use my last name to look me up. I gave him that name and he proceeded to look in the wrong portion of the alphabet, I told him the letter was between this letter and that letter. Oh. He then asked me if my name was x. I told him no. It was x. and pointed to my name on the list. aaaaccckkk!

5. I think it is weird that polling places, where I live, are always at churches. I guess there is not a problem for the separation of church and state when you need a free place to vote. I do wonder if there are people that vote by mail because they won't enter a church building.



Just some random observation for this day in November, history making or not.