We Voted in Saint Paul

[MineralMan]

My wife and I went to the polling place for our precinct this morning. It's at an elementary school, so there were lots of parents dropping off their late-starting kindergardeners off at school as voters were driving in. Caution was needed, for sure. In the polling place, we passed the table for election day registration and went to the sign-in tables. The polling place workers were pleasant and smiling (they won't be by the end of the day) and there were no poll watchers on hand. No signs outside, either, which is nice.

There were 10 voting booths and eight of them had people voting in them. That's way higher than at the primary around the same time, but not like the lines in 2008. I filled in the little ovals on both sides of our ballot for all of the DFL-endorsed candidates, and even marked the ovals for all the judges who had no opponents. I do that because most people just skip those, and I think they need some votes, too.

The optical reader sucked in my ballot and the counter increased by one number, so the ballot was read properly. Got my "I Voted" sticker and put it on my shirt. That was it. As we left, several of the polling place workers said "Thank you," and we returned thanks to them.

Now the waiting begins!

[kstewart33]

1. Thanks for the report! nt

[HughMoran]

2. Similar story here in NH.

Yep - all we can do is wait and hope Americans aren't as stupid as they seem on TV :rofl: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9441067

[Bitwit1234]

3. Isn't that Bachmann's district I hope your votes counted against her

[MineralMan]

4. Nope. CD6 is just to the East of St. Paul. Then it

squirms north and west. Our Congresswoman is Betty McCollum, and she will win handily. She's one of the good progressives in Congress, and is very popular in this Democratic district.

[MineralMan]

5. The reason there are no campaign signs anywhere near our polling place

is that it's at a public school, and no signs are allowed on school property. The school grounds are quite large, so there are no signs anywhere near it. I like that, and have always felt that polling places should generally be on government-owned property. Ours used to be in a nearby Methodist Church basement in a residential area. There were campaign signs galore on the residential lawns near the church. Lots of religious stuff on the walls, too, on election day. I and many others complained about this, and the polling place was moved to the school.

[madinmaryland]

6. I thought you said "We Voted for Saint Paul"

:wtf:

I need to read the thread titles more closely.

[MineralMan]

7. Nah. That old misogynist. I would never vote for him.

He was a homophobe, too. Kind of the Jerry Falwell of the early Christian church. I think he had chronic hemorrhoids or something. Made him really grumpy and stuff at times.

[kickysnana]

8. My New Brighton PP was packed, lines for everything

I heard one of the judges handing out the ballots say there was "quite a turn out" and the other one said "That is what we are here for."

Our folders were too wide for the machine so everyone had to take their ballot out to get it to "eat" it but as long as it took the ballot I was happy.

[MineralMan]

9. They didn't even bother with the folders at my polling place.

Nobody can really read how you voted anyhow. I'm glad to hear about your crowded polling place. It's a good sign, I think.