Florida: The Election is In Your Hands

Much to my amazement, the "A-C" precinct worker checking my identification hesitated before giving me a ballot, challenging my signature. My penmanship has been in steady decline since I began waging war against my wrists as a code monkey in the '80s. The signature they had on file for me had to be 20 years old, which is inexplicable because I moved to Florida in 1997, so the two scribblings barely resembled each other. Fortunately, because my driver's license signature matched and my license photo looks like the deranged loner you see here on Workbench, worker "D-F" talked him into giving me my damn ballot.

I don't know what's going on here, but I'm hoping it's just an overzealous precinct worker. If Florida election supervisors are encouraging workers to pass judgment on voter signatures, this is going to be a long day.

Florida · Politics · 2004/11/02 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Here in Pennsylvania, a swing state, my experience was fairly routine. Total time 15-20 minutes. ID, signature comparison along with a paper registration card. Like the efficient son of a secretary that I am I had my photo license at the ready, not needed. I did vote before evening rush hour at about 3:30PM.

In the adjacent county to my West there were four hour delays because of turnout and/or an ill-prepared county administration. There have been population shifts though. I pass through that county on a regular basis (the one that rec'd national news attention for it's delays) and in a relatively rural area of farms is the largest school under construction I have ever seen. So population shifts may(?) have caught the county off guard because they're busy with the transformation of their metrics.

I don't think the intimidation factor is quite the problem as published but I'm in a small town. If you're looking for something you may just find it. Most likely the holdup for you in FLA was that they sensed yer celebrity charisma as they would have for Arafat.

I did notice that the pundits outside the poll were not handing out any flyers this year. They just stood there like store front maniqens(sp?) until I passed then returned to their subdued conversations.

#1 · is that pollworker staring at me???!!! · 2004/11/04

Here in Pennsylvania, a swing state, my experience was fairly routine. Total time 15-20 minutes. ID, signature comparison along with a paper registration card. Like the efficient son of a secretary that I am I had my photo license at the ready, not needed. I did vote before evening rush hour at about 3:30PM.

In the adjacent county to my West there were four hour delays because of turnout and/or an ill-prepared county administration. There have been population shifts though. I pass through that county on a regular basis (the one that rec'd national news attention for it's delays) and in a relatively rural area of farms is the largest school under construction I have ever seen. So population shifts may(?) have caught the county off guard because they're busy with the transformation of their metrics.

I don't think the intimidation factor is quite the problem as published but I'm in a small town. If you're looking for something you may just find it. Most likely the holdup for you in FLA was that they sensed yer celebrity charisma as they would have for Arafat.

I did notice that the pundits outside the poll were not handing out any flyers this year. They just stood there like store front maniqens(sp?) until I passed then returned to their subdued conversations.

#2 · is that pollworker staring at me???!!! · 2004/11/05

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