What was your Voting Experience 09?

We sure hope you voted! Rainy and cloudy, just like last year and the lines were short, but this time my expectation is that that’s not due to a flush of early voting. I voted this morning at 9 am. Municipal Elections = low turnout (expected to be around 9 percent). I was voter #85 at my polling place. The parking lot was littered with signs, most of which were for the candidates that have been the most visible during the whole campaign. My district did not include a school board option. Was your experience any different?

Jonathan10/06 12:22 PM

Voter #50 at 2:15 PM in my district of 5,982 registered voters.

Rob E.10/06 12:25 PM

Quiet, wet. At around 8:00am there was one person out in front of the polling place encouraging people to pick Karen Simon over Deborah Prickett for the Board of Education. I didn’t pay enough attention to signs. There was one person who walked in right before me. I saw no other voters during the few minutes it took me to fill out my ballot and head back out. I think my voter number was in the upper 60’s.

Rex10/06 12:25 PM

Voter #126 at Our Savior Lutheran in Five Points. Voted at 330pm. Only voter in the hall. After signing in and three votes, I was out in 5 minutes. N.b. - no campaigners outside.

dt10/06 12:37 PM

Voted at 8:30 at Millbrook Exchange, voter number 57, no problems, easy in/out.

FT10/06 12:53 PM

Shame these numbers are so low. At Nobel Road this AM #23

Betsy10/06 01:10 PM

In precinct 01-23, 24 voters as of 9:45 am.

The News & Observer has checked out on local council coverage, choosing mostly to run stories about how uninteresting the races are, and how low turnout will be—just like they did in 2007. They aren’t even aware of the most basic issues.

Apparently they think some other newspaper is covering Raleigh politics and city council affairs.

Meanwhile they’ve still got hundreds of employees, but devoted mostly to stuff like sweet potato recipes and Triangle Mom2Mom. Ayh.

Ladye Jane10/06 01:12 PM

#355 in district C @5:00

JohnBrownsBooty10/06 01:43 PM

voter #3 @7am…precinct 1-13 at St Matt’s AME church off Glascock.

I was the only voter in the room

Chris Weedy10/06 01:57 PM

I worked the polls from 6:30 am to 8 am for Thomas Crowder at the fire department on Trailwood. It was lightly raining and there was a light turnout. I voted at Project Enlightenment at 5pm and was voter # 145.

Justin688210/06 02:19 PM

I was #27 at 10:00 at the Chavis Heights Community Center. There were two folks outside handing out information for the Democratic candidates.

Drew B10/06 02:26 PM

Voter #150 at Robert’s Park in district C around 6:15. There was one person leaving as I pulled up and one person arriving as I left. No campaigners unless that person sitting in the parking lot was one.

smitty10/06 02:30 PM

Total joke. There should be no elections in October. We need instant-runoff voting. http://www.fairvote.org/irv/
http://www.chrisgates.net/irv/

Brian10/06 02:34 PM

#149 at Powell Elementary around 4:00 PM. Two others left just before me, but there was no one outside except the worker set up for curbside accessible voting.

ninstaller10/06 03:10 PM

Voter numero 3 at Our Savior Lutheran at 7 am. My own personal best. I was the only voter at the time. Kind election worker gave me a sticker.

Ashton10/06 03:50 PM

i was #114 of a little over a 1,000 at wiley around 1045am. cameron park rarely misses votes it seems…

North Raleigh Guy10/06 04:03 PM

I was voter #415 at 6:15 PM at the firehouse on Durant Road in North Raleigh. Three people were outside holding signs for various city council candidates.

Aly10/06 06:38 PM

My wife and I were so excited to represent 2% of our precinct that we had to go to our “neighborhood bar & grill” at Gorman and Hillsborough!

HelenTart10/07 05:00 AM

I was voter #205 in my precinct around 1pm. There was one candidate and one person representing another candidate out front when I was there.

We didn’t have a Board of Election race, so the turnout was low.

Jeff10/07 07:09 AM

Voter #243 at Emmanuelle Baptist Church - 7:15PM

arthurb310/07 08:40 AM

I went to The Elections office on Salisbury Street at 9:30am and there was only one person in front of me. It took about half an hour -including the walk from the parking deck. Cost a dollar for the parking.

Voter Lover10/07 05:17 PM

I worked the election all day - from 6:30 am until closing at 7:30 pm. We had a high “low” turnout of about 15% in NW Raleigh. I have worked low “low” turnouts for run-off elections with only 10 or 12 people showing up(including the poll workers who were eligible to vote in the district).

It is not only sad that people don’t show up to vote, but that these low turnout School Board elections end up not accurately reflecting the mood of the area, as evidenced by the takeover of the Board of Ed by characters that want to make sure that poor kids go to poor schools in poor neighborhoods while their own rich kids go to rich schools in rich neighborhoods (and will probably try to ban the teaching of evolution and sex ed by the time they’re done), in areas that have traditionally voted in much more moderate candidates.

But while voter turnout is definitely low, poll worker turnout is abysmally low!

By law, precinct poll workers must be evenly split by party - at this point half DEM, half GOP. I received an urgent email from the Board a few weeks ago looking for more GOP members to sign up for poll worker positions. They are having a hard time finding the number needed, and are therefore required to turn to unaffiliated voters to fill these judge slots rather than the Assistant positions they are usually relegated to.

What’s up, folks? Everyone on the right seems so worried about people voting illegally, but they can’t even fill the seats guaranteed to them in the polling places that allow them to intimately monitor the elections!

As for instant run-offs? Cary tried using instant run-offs as an experiment during the last election. There was not even any mention of it during the many training sessions I went to for this election. I have a funny feeling (which I will check into tomorrow) that the idea was dropped due to voter confusion.

People are so sure that they are being disenfranchised, somehow, and particularly during the last election, that trying to explain the instant run-off (and convincing them that their choices would be accurately reflected) must have been a difficult sell.

I know that, in describing it to people, and telling them “You get your first choice, but if there’s a run-off, and they don’t make the cut, it goes to your second choice, but if they are not part of the run-off, it goes to your third choice…” they sort of glaze over. So, they want a run-off, but they just don’t want to show up for it.

But it also saves the county MILLIONS of dollars to have the instant run-off, so I hope that it will be the norm in the future.

BTW - If you did not vote in this election, and there is a run-off, you can STILL VOTE in the run-off election.

Billie10/08 10:14 AM

I was voter #155 at 6:20 pm at Roberts Park. No other voters - I was in and out in about 3 minutes.

John10/08 10:19 AM

Voter Lover-

Republicans aren’t poll workers because they have real jobs.

Brian10/08 11:31 AM

I thought it was because they hate America.

CR10/08 11:48 AM

Republicans don’t volunteer because they are all out working at their six figure salary jobs. Didn’t you see the seas of CEO types at the Sarah Palin rallies last year?

Crystal10/08 07:21 PM

Voter #299 at 6:30 PM… district is about 3000. Kinda sad!

Welcome to New Raleigh. We welcome your participation in the ongoing discussion. Before posting we ask that you read our Comment Policy and we invite you to register with our site. If you want to keep up with the news on our blog, subscribe to the RSS feed or get emailed every time we post.

David Tuesday, October 06, 2009