Short note. We went and voted this morning. We got there about 10:30. It was great timing but glad I took my walker. There was no line and there were more workers than voters but by the time I got away from my very talkative check in worker and went to sit down there was only one seat and then as I was voting there was a line developing. But the worker wanted to talk all about the hurricane, what damage we got, what damage she suffered. She was a real gossip for sure. I sat on the seat of my walker and chatted with her. They have a different system for voting this time than for the primary. The primary was the large paper ballot with circles to be filled in with the pen they give you. But this set up they gave you a strip of paper about four or five inches wide and 10 inches long. Everyone sits at an electronic touch screen display, it walks you through the ballot and at the end it displays all your choices and lets you edit or change the vote. When all done it prints your choices on the strip of paper. You can then check it to make sure it prints what you chose on the paper, then you take it to the back of the room and insert it in a tabulating scanner. I like it a lot, it is easy to read, easy to use, and has ways to verify at every step. I am sure the rabid republican right will find a reason to hate it. But I was really struggling by the time we got to the tabulating stage and the worker had to help me get the strip into the scanner. I thanked all the workers for helping with the election and there were a lot of them. Then we went to the store for Ron to get a couple things on our way home. I was going to get my second shingles shoot and a Covid booster but I just was not feeling up to it, so as Ron waited in line I went back to the car. When Ron got to the car he said he had not realized how bad I was until he watched me put the walker in the back of the car and then hang on to the side of the car to walk to the front. He tried to cross the parking lot as fast as he could to help me but I managed. We got home and I went to bed until about 2:30 or so. But we did it we voted, I hope against bad feelings the Democrats win the races. Hugs
We Voted
Published by Scotties Playtime
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 33rd year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is scottiesplaytime@gmail.com View all posts by Scotties Playtime
Scottie's Playtime 
Geez! Your voting system sounds complicated!!! But then, I’m spoiled since we have vote by mail. We get our Voters’ Pamphlet and then about 7-10 days later, we get our ballots by mail. We can then either mail them back (postage paid) or put them in a ballot box.
Easy-peezy.
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Here, everyone is mailed information on the voting process (but not the candidates) about a month before the close of the polls and it includes an optional ID card that can speed up the voting at a polling station by around minute. For general elections, the default is to vote in person but you can opt for postal voting, telephone voting or proxy voting. Regardless, the voting paper is the same: on the left is a list of candidates standing for the electorate (voting district) seat (and if they represent a political party, that is included as well in smaller type). Beside each name is a checkbox where you enter a tick (or a cross or any other mark so long as it’s unambiguous). On the right side is a list of political parties, again with a checkbox beside each party for you indicate your preferred party. The party vote is used to determine the proportionality of the parties in parliament. (70 seats are electorate seats and an additional 50 list seats are allocated to the parties to ensure that each party has has the same percentage of seats in parliament as the percentage gained nationwide from the party vote). All vote counting is done manually by an independent electoral commission that oversees the entire voting process. Voting machines have never been used here, and I don’t think they ever will be. Easy-peezy – one vote for a candidate and one vote for a party.
Manual counting means there are few informal votes (votes that are considered invalid). For example the instructions say to put a check mark (tick) beside your chosen candidate and party, but a cross is just as acceptable, as will a voting paper where the voter has put a line through all but one candidate and/or all but one party. I’ve been involved in the counting process in the past it’s quite amazing the ways some voters choose to mark their ballot paper. So long as the intent is clear, it is considered valid. I remember one paper where the voter had written 4-letter expletives over all candidates but one, ond over that candidate he’d written “Hell yeah!!!”. The vote was counted as valid.
Local government elections (district councils and regional councils) are by postal voting only, but you have the option of dropping the envelop off at a number of drop off locations if you prefer. Political parties are conspicuous by their absence in local government elections, and long may it remain so. Each district or regional council is responsible for running their election process and most have opted to contrat the work out to one of two private companies, both of which performed below expectations in the elections held in September. The wife and didn’t receive our voting papers until after the cut-off day to mail them in, so we had to drop them off which entailed a 2 minute drive to the nearest council office. I won’t be too surprised if the task of running local elections is allocated to the electoral commission before the 2025 local elections.
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Hello Barry. Sounds like a nice system. Best wishes.
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Hello Nan. This year we did not even get our sample ballots. When we had a democrats in charge of the voting we always got a large pamphlet that showed what our ballot would look like and who was on it. This time they sent out a pamphlet that had every race and question in the entire county there was no way to know what was going to apply to us and what wouldn’t. There were people I did not get to look up and there were three more ballot measures than I thought there would be. But I did like the electronic voting machine compared to the fill in the circles of the old way. Hugs
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Doesn’t it feel good to get it done-great work! I’m glad you got around and got out a bit; I thought you’d be exhausted this morning. Done is done, and done is good!
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Hello Ali. Yes I love to vote, I think it is both a pleasure and a duty. I always make sure to thank all the poll workers I meet and who help me. The system wouldn’t work with out them. I wonder how it is going to be changed with the maga people demanding to be poll watchers when poll workers are supposed to be non-partisan. Hugs
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Hello all. Just to explain why I don’t do vote by mail considering I am disabled and it is a bit of a hassle to go to the voting place. The reason is in a red state they have made voting by mail an iffy thing. There are far too many ways to reject the ballot and no way to really check to see it they counted your vote. When I go in person I can tell that I have made my vote count and if there is an issue I can correct it. Hugs to all.
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