My weirdest/most annoying experience voting ever...

[Lisa0825]

First of all, my voting location was in a hotel room. A hotel room? Isn't that a bit weird? I mean, I have been to churches, utility companies, schools, etc, and a hotel lobby wouldn't have seemed so weird, but a teeny, tiny hotel room?

Next, there were 2 poll workers present. One seemed not to know anything, and was being taught what to do by the other. He had his young son there (about 3 or 4 years old), who was playing, and making lots of noise (begin the annoying part). THREE TIMES, the kid managed to get the hotel room door open and bolt out toward the parking lot, so his father had to chase him down, and bring him back in, by now kicking and screaming. Meanwhile, the trainee had to wait for him to get settled to show her what to do.

They gave me a choice of a paper ballot or E-slate. It's the first time I have seen E-slate in my area. I chose paper. Instead of a basic drop box, there was a box with attached scanner. When you inster the ballot into the scanner, it displays a message saying your vote has been tallied, and then drops the ballot down into the box. That was interesting, but not necessarily weird or annoying. At least it kept the paper ballots for recounting if necessary.

To continue with the weird/annoying theme, once they handed me the ballot, I looked around for a place to sit and fill it out. Remember, this is a hotel room. There was exactly ONE small table with ONE chair available. Now granted, this is a small precinct, and it's likely that no one would have to wait more than a moment at any time in the day, but still. It seemed weird. But the REALLY annoying part was that the female poll worker had to clear the table, which had the child's breakfast and other stuff all over it so I could have a place to vote. THEN, because the kid was in the way and she didn't want to move him, she had to pick up the chair, move it over him to the other side of the table, and set it down.

I sat down to vote (FINALLY - it took several minutes to get to this point, despite the fact that I was the only voter to show by 7:20am). There was no shield/cublicle/barrier of any sort, and the two of them were still moving around me, situatinghe child, picking up things, etc. Whatever happend to privacy???

Geeze. It was not a pleasant experience. I didn't have to really think about my choices this time, but if I had, it would have been too noisy to concentrate. Yes, Iwill be letting someone know about my experience. I thought since it was too late to do anything about it today, I'd wait so they wouldn't be too busy to talk to me.

[liveoaktx]

1. Wow! Were they that hard up to get a poll worker?

Yeah, I"m with you, I'd let somebody know about this, ridic to have the clear the table, in fact, the KID should have had to move, IF he had to come at all.

[Lisa0825]

2. If he was a quiet, well-behaved kid, I might not have even mentioned

him. Maybe they should have sprung for two adjoining rooms, so he could play next door, with the door open for supervision's sake.

[crispini]

3. I would file a formal complaint, in writing, with your elections office.

Call them tomorrow, get their fax number, print out what you have written (with specific appropriate details i.e. your precinct number, etc, maybe make it a little more formal) and fax it to them.

They need to know so they can give that election judge a ration of shit, and preferably not hire that person again.

[WestHoustonDem]

4. Wow, Lisa, that sucks. I hope you file a formal complaint

tomorrow!

[WatchWhatISay]

5. I was an election judge today

We had a specific form for voters to fill out about anything they thought was problematic at the polls. I don't know if you conveyed to the officials that you were annoyed or not, but I suspect they wouldn't have known to give you the form to fill out if they did realize it.

Absolutely call fax or write your election administrator. Otherwise you are likely to encounter this kind of experience again next time. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, but in my county, Montgomery, several precincts had no Dems found to work them, so we kindly requested that the Republicans run our elections. For all I know, we probably paid them to do it. And even for those of us that did work a polling place, we were the only county in Texas to share our primary location and the "brain" of electronic (Hart) machines with the Republicans. And in all but one out of 85 precincts, the Republicans were Presiding Judge ( and therefore primarily in charge of the main unit)since they won the Gov. election in each precinct. A sorry situation for sure. But what is the county chair supposed to do if people wont volunteer to work? He's quitting , by the way.