Comments on: If you used the wrong paper stock, then you can’t vote

By: Nomen Nescio

Nomen Nescio — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

is there any way, other than deliberately sitting down to debate "how can we legally scrap all the voter registrations in that pile, without having to scrap too many in this pile", that anybody could even find such an obscure and irrelevant rule? what on earth goes through the head of a person involved in such horse-trading, anyway?

By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

That article should have included something about “desperately pawing the air” for measures to turn registered Democrats away from the voting booths.

By: Dan J

Dan J — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Kip was right.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Not being an American citizen, I’d never heard of the GOP. Until today, I’d just assumed it was some collection of right wing lunatics who supported George Bush (from the things they’re reported as doing). I was stunned to find out that it was the ruling party of the most powerful nation in the world.

I should have known.

By: alsis38

alsis38 — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Kip Is Wrong.

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Aside from the more important voter rights issue…. What a pain in the neck!

I’ve worked the polls. Do you know how absolutely aggravating it is when people who honestly think they are registered don’t appear on the list of registered voters? Obviously, you want to explore every avenue to get them a ballot. (But, of course, you don’t want to violate any law!)

Of course, there is always a line. You flip through all the possible guidebooks checking and double checking the rules. The person voting is invariable under the impression that the poll workers are full time employees who do this all the time. (NOT!) You try to call a full time person for further guidance. Needless to say, 90% of the time, the phone is busy. When you get through, they are singularly uninformative….

Luckily, when I’ve worked the polls, there were never more than 2 voters who this happened to. I can’t even imagine how frustrating it would be if it happened to lots of people. (Once, the county didn’t inform a whole subdivision that their polling location had been changed in a timely fashion. The notices arrived in most voters afternoon mail on the day of the election. What’s worse though, is that the voters came to our polling place after visiting another polling place who told them the wrong new location! And I don’t think this was done with any intention of disenfranchising people. It was just one of those “ordinary” screwups.)

And now someone wants to increase the number of these frustrated people by rejecting their applications because the paper was too thin? Yikes!