Share your voting experiences
Have you voted yet? Leave a comment and let us know how things went for you.
Have you voted yet? Leave a comment and let us know how things went for you.
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Valerie Catrow
Valerie Catrow is editor of RVAFamily, mother to a mop-topped first grader, and always really excited to go to bed.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I just walked over to the Ginter Park library to check out the scene. It looked to be about a 30 minute wait with the line growing as I took some pictures.
I’m going to wait another hour before I actually try and vote.
I got to Cary Elementary at 6:15 and found a line 75-100 yards long outside the school. It was pretty uneventful waiting in line, except the light rain and sometimes interesting conversation between fellow line-mates.
When we got inside and closer to the actual polls, they were calling for people with the last name T-Z to skip the line and head straight up. Occasionally, they even called for H-S to come up as there were fewer of them. What caused this? Did the segmentation of the alphabet properly reflect the registered voters, but just people with last name A-G showed up more? Did someone skip his/her homework and forget to research the proper distribution? Or is mandated by law to break up the lines in such a way?
Voting itself was pretty uneventful, except my machine (#1) had a “Charge/Battery Low” warning light blinking, so I alerted one of the workers. Why would these machines not be plugged in, or not fully charged? I also heard one lady tell another “Don’t use Machine 3.” I don’t know why, but that scared me, too.
Afterward, I immediately broke my Starbucks rule and got free coffee. The place was packed!
Oh, and I waited for a total of 2 hours, which seems to be the average.
I voted at Albert Hill middle school at 8:30 a.m. and there was NO ONE in line. I didn’t even wait! I walked right up, told the guy who I was, and went straight in to vote.
This disappoints me. What the hell, WOTB twentysomethings? Did you think the rain would make you melt?
I feel better knowing that there are lines elsewhere.
Oh, and for reference, I waited 40 minutes in 2006 or ’07 to vote for Webb. Hell, I waited 10 minutes to vote in the primary, both at the exact same time of day. Either there’s no one in my district who wants to vote, or they over prepared. There were like 10 machines, but I think there were fewer for Webb.
Also, what’s the deal with the non-QWERTY keyboard when you do a write in? It took me forever to type in “Ross Catrow” for school board. Thankfully Virginia’s scrapping the computer voting machines.
I voted at clover hill high school. I walked in and there was no wait. The bell rang at the time when I used to get up from the lunch table in the morning and go to class. Nostalgia all up in it. But, it was nice because I drove by the local middle school and it looked packed!
I also don’t trust anyone when it comes to counting my vote. I was so stressed about everything the people working as well as the machine that counted my vote.
I voted at Cary Elementary probably 45 minutes or so after Daniel up-thread, and the same thing was still going on with the sections of the alphabet. People with P-Z names were coming up from way back in the line to vote, while those of us in the A-G line had to wait much longer.
Parking 2-3 blocks away, waiting in the rain, close to two hour wait total. But I think it was worth it.
Elizabeth is right, it was P-Z, not T-Z. My apologies.
For those that are going to Cary: There’s a parking lot right beside the playground. The entrance is across from the baseball field on Sheppard St. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to use it, but I did.
The wife and I arrived at Thompson at 8:20 AM and were done voting by 8:40 AM. It was completely painless and the mood was friendly & civil. The funniest thing that happened was watching Pantelle workers hustling to get set up (quarter to 9 when the polls opened at 6AM). They must have forgotten the old parable that the early bird gets the worm.
I voted at 25th and M Streets, and got there at 6:20am. The line took about 2 1/2 hours but everyone was in great spirits despite the rain, which was pretty heavy at times.
I had a different experience than Elizabeth and Daniel because the T-Z line was much longer than all the other ones.
I voted at Hermitage Methodist at 6:20 this morning. There were already at least 100 to 150 people in front of me in line. It only took about 45 minutes though. Not too shabby. They had 6 voting booths and all were working at the time.
Whoops, I made the same mistake. It was actually P-Z. (Hey, I’m still tired.)
I just voted at the Ginter Park Library. It took probably ten minutes, most of which was spent trying to decipher the ABC non-QWERTY keyboard.
Richmond city uses electronic voting machines. While I was there a gentleman had problems with his vote for US Senate. I didn’t hear much but they were discussing whether to make him vote with a provisional ballot.
I voted early on Saturday, and, as I am mildly retarded at times, I forgot to change my registration from Chesterfield Co. to Richmond, when I moved back from Baltimore, so I had to vote out on Ironbridge. I only got to vote for President, Senate, and District committee leader, and I was totally bummed that I was unable to write in Frankie Muniz for School Board. He would have been so good too.
Oh also, the way the voting lines were set up was ridiculous. First the room is tiny, like way tiny. Second the line to check in is set up in such a way that after you check in as a T-Z you must cross through the other alphabet lines to stand in the “ready to vote” line.
I bet the place is going to be a disaster come 7pm.
I was inline at the Hermitage Methodist Home on Northside at 5:50 a.m. and was about 160th in line. Line moved quickly – there were seven electronic booths all operating just fine – and I was home (3 blocks away) by 6:45 a.m. Kudos to those people working my poll – very organized!
oh i also voted at a non standard booth. it was ok though because they had a privacy folder for me to use with instructions on how to use it. which really is just a tabloid size manila folder. but it had name. respect the privacy folder!
Voted at Imperial Plaza on the Northside around 6:45. I only had to wait about 20 minutes. The best part was there was someone in line that didn’t want to take off his campaign button. The lady at the desk was yelling at him saying it was the law and he kept saying back to her that it was his constitutional right to wear it. Eventually they gave him a yellow hospital gown to wear over it and he went and voted.
This is what I was scared of:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/voting.problems/
Before the last 2 presidential elections, this was unheard of. Now it seems commonplace.
If you have problems of a heroic nature, report it. The CNN Voter Hotline is 877-462-6608.
Same thing at Humphrey Caulder with the alphabet, save with ours the S-Z folks were called up, and that line was shorter.
I think they do it based on registration, because the size of the actual lists at each table (there were 4 divisions) looked the same to me.
I wonder if people with last names later in the alphabet received less political mailings or phone calls or something. I almost wonder if some campaigns start mailings with As but run out of funding or change the mailing before reaching Zs.
I voted at Carver ELementary and arrived at 7:20. I was told that the line there extended 3 blocks at 5 a.m. and the polls didn’t open until 6. I finally voted at 10:10!
Both the A-G and P-Z lines were calling for people to come down to the registration tables, while those of us in the H-O lines waited over an hour just to get registered.
The system needs work.
Just got my sticker. New design this year. Spent the morning reading a forum on the Fox News site about who people would vote for. Needed one last laugh before I’m glad all of this is over. Huge line outside of Randolph Community Center. Guy separating the t-z’s from the line and letting them through early. As soon as I whipped out the gameboy, they started calling for the a-d’s. Reminds me of elementary school. Some years they would hand out the report cards in opposite order, just to give the Sally Zonkersons of the world a chance to not feel dead last for once in their lives. Another day to be thankful to own a scooter, as otherwise I would have needed to park three blocks away. Too many people handing me leaflets that I am too polite to pass up. A cop had pulled over a moving truck and was blocking traffic. In the register, my name had a question mark next to it. Didn’t know who to vote for, other than senate and president, so left the rest blank. I suppose I could have quickly checked the leaflets that were now balled up and buried under the rest of the trash in my bag. Tonight, at work, we will watch the overdone coverage, with whomever has the least annoying anchor. I’m hoping for Brian Williams.
Arrived at Bailey Bridge Middle School circa ~10:15am. Line was long but moved quickly enough; probably only waited 15-20 minutes total. Parking was a bigger problem than anything.
Some lady came around and told us to have our voter registration and IDs ready to go and that we would be voting for the president, a senator, and “a house of representative.” Voted using some “bubble in your choice” form instead of a touch-screen of fail. Booth was cheap and wobbly. Lots of old people.
Kinda ticked off they didn’t hand out a receipt proving your vote was counted properly. They give receipts for buying a donut with cash (RIP Mitch Hedberg), yet they can’t do the same for something important like a presidential election?
I was the 1,614th voter in my precinct. I guess that’s kind of high.
Perhaps a discussion better suited for a different place, but I think receipts for votes is a stupid idea. First, what purpose will it serve? Will you be able to later submit it should the machines fail? Couldn’t you just recall everyone that was checked off of the list as having voted? Second, it allow the over-controlling parents or spouse to force someone to vote a specific way!
Voted at the community center on thompson and grove. I got in line at about 10:45 – there was nobody waiting in line EXCEPT for about 50-70 people waiting for E – K last names. Poll workers said it was about an hour wait for everybody early in the morning, but it was slow and steady before noon. I’m sure lunch time it’ll really pick up. I waited for about 25 minutes to check my registration. There was about 10 electronic voting machines, and maybe 4 were in use at any one time.
My girlfriend waiting in line at Carver elementary for 2.5 hours – she arrived at 9:00, said it was total chaos. I’ve heard city hall is in chaos.
Voted in Hanover Co. just before 9 AM. Took all of a minute–no wait. My precinct uses pen-filled ovals and Scantron machines (ah the nostalgia of standardized testing). I was number 598, which is higher than the count (at a similar time) in non-prez elections, but this is first prez election I’ve voted in the precinct.
I arrived to at the Randolph Community Center at 730a and encountered a line that was about 1/4 mi long. I was mentally prepared to stand in the rain for as long as necessary. What I was not prepared for was to find out 2 hours later that the reason I wait so long was completely unnecessary and ridiculous. About an hour after I arrived, I watched as people with last names beginning with A-D and S-Z continually shuffled by me from behind. When I was about 15 people away from finally checking in, I said to the girl in front of me, please say there are 2 lines for the rest of us, and then realized that this was not the case. Anyone with last names from E-R were being serviced by ONE man paging through TWO books, and one lady was handing out numbered tickets. When I asked why this was happening, I was told that they were shorted on rolls of numbered tickets, and that they were required to run the process this way. I am furious, and would love to figure out who is responsible and who can fix this. The demographics in my neighborhood make it a strategic location for voting trickery, and I would like to yell loud enough to prevent this from happening for the rest of the day.
Just got back from voting at EDI in Church Hill. I heard stories of hours of waiting from this morning but we got in and out in 40 minutes. We did get to jump a bit because we were an A-F which was nice. Was moving well.
The biggest issue I heard about was apparently the DMV has done a really poor job of switching people’s voting info when they change their address and also sending in their voter reg stuff. In our couple minutes inside they were dealing with about 5 people who had DMV related issues.
2 hr wait in line at blackwell at 6:30 this am. BUT SO WORTH IT! there were some issues with machines going down and at one point there were only 3 voting machines, when we left they had it back up to 5.
Ours was pleasant in Church Hill – I got in quickly because of my super sweet last initial, but poor old husband had to wait in line for a little while, as I read in the car. Here’s to not changing your name!!
I stood in line for about 45 minutes in the Northside this morning. When I finally got close, I realized I was waiting in line for the vending machine.
I had really hoped to help elect Obama, but I cast my vote for Andy Capp’s Hot Fries instead.
Democracy is delicious!
Got to Swift Creek Elementary (chesterfield) at 5:30a.m. to see a parking lot full, gym full. Voted at 6:30a.m.
The wife went at 9:30am – no line…
I guess that was just everyone trying to get their vote in before going to work.
Albert Hill at 6:40am or so, lines out the door yet was out around 20-25 minutes later. Overall very smooth, i saw no evidence of confusion or machines not working, unlike my experiences in 2000 and 2004.
Smiling, friendly poll workers, calm, respectful voters, I’m very proud to be a Richmonder today. America is the greatest country in the world! Let Freedom ring. and the best part for me were the beautiful women I saw as I waited in line at the downtown library.
everybody is beautiful to somebody.
The part of my experience that I forgot to mention were the 2 characters that I encountered in the line. One was a bug-eyed conspiracy theorist who never concluded a sentence or a point. He liked to spout unrelated (and I’m guessing incorrect) statistics and facts and never really let us know what point he was trying to make. He then proceeded to scrape wax out of his ear with a stick and flick it on the ground. His last name was in the S-Z group, and I was thankful when he was called away. Despite his obvious lack of sense, the man next to me attempted to converse/argue with him. As much as this annoyed me, I was thankful because I was standing under his umbrella. He voted for Nixon, but was uncomfortably flirting with the early 20-something girl behind me by shaking water from his umbrella onto hers. Needless to say the rain was the least uncomfortable part of those 2 hours…. I would have gone through worse for longer if necessary, it was all worth it. :)
thats a nice quote Bopst, i cant argue with you about that
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Any news from people voting after work? Or are you guys still in line?
I’ve rolled around Church Hill, there aren’t any lines at all.
Imperial Plaza (Northside) had zero people in line when we showed up around 5:30p. The workers all looked bored. My husband and I looked silly with our rain gear and tote bag full of food and books. Happy day!
I voted around 10:30 this morning at the 31st baptist church in church hill.
It was a great experience, lots of friendly volunteers, the wait wasn’t too bad… maybe forty minutes. The table to get my ticket to vote was in a relatively small room which included the four voting machines, three of which were working. Once I acquired my ticket I had to back track to the longer voting line… A mostly easy process but a little confusing. . I saw a wide age range and there were these really amazing mosaics of trees made from brass and wood on the walls. I was proud to vote today and I enjoyed seeing my old neighborhood.
i went by Cary ele. and there was no line at 5:45p