[Ragtime Cowgirl]

I had no problem voting in Lee County. A poll worker met us at the door, answered all questions, carefully instructed us on using the new machines. Only one member of our group of ~ eight chose not to listen to the instructions...a senior Dem. woman who said she "couldn't be bothered to listen" and went straight to the voting machine. Simple. I pressed one wrong button...pressed it again and, wow, erased my mistake. My neighbor asked a poll worker for help once. We were finished in minutes...including carefully checking over our final votes before pushing the big VOTE button to lock in our ballots.

Democrats will always have problems with elections because they are instructed to look for problems. Life's funny like that. The more you look for trouble, the more likely you are to find it. Even a police car parked a mile away can be a reason to sue.

Democrats think that there could be such a thing as a "perfect" election. There couldn't, of course, human error's always present to some degree in the real world. Being prepared, learning about the candidates and issues, asking questions when you don't know and carefully following directions is a voter's responsibility.

People voted in Zimbabwe recently at the point of a gun, knowing their vote would most likely be tossed by a crooked leader...they valued the right to vote enough to risk their lives.

Dem. election "fraud" would not be possible without the help of the Dem. press accomplices.

Comments appreciated and will be forwarded to the appropriate pols, pundits, pups and peacocks.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Election day was swell for me...how about you?

[jackbill]

The Republicans in Florida - and throughout the United States - should be screaming from the rooftops that the Gov. of Florida doesn't run the elections in Florida. The Sec. of State doesn't run the elections in Florida. The county Supervisor of Elections of each individual county runs the elections in Florida. And in the two counties with the most problems in Florida have DemocRAT Supervisors of Elections.

Is that such a hard message to get out?

[mysonsfuture]

Off point here. But how did Charlie Crist win so easily for Attorney general? Whats his stategy, to run for every elective office at least once? Thought Burt was more qualified.

[walrus954]

I urge all of you to call the Reno camp and tell them to keep going and your (or your friend's) problems at the polls. Not only is she much less of a threat to Jeb, it is in our best interest to KEEP THE DEMS FIGHTING! Janet Reno's office number is 305-760-2002

[Humal]

I had no problems voting on computer machines in Roseland, Florida (near Vero Beach). Did have a quick "how to" lesson, since the machines were new, but no trouble after that. No complaints from the other people at the voting place while I was there.

The comments by a person being interviewed on T.V. I thought was right on target. He said if people were too dumb to take a stick and punch a hole in a piece of paper, how could they handle computers.

Also, on the 2000 fiasco, it seems that the counties with the computers had the most trouble with the voting machines. These were in the northern part of the state, I believe. Does anyone else remember this?

[woofie]

I had no problem ...maybe because I live in New Mexico

[JulieRNR21]

I voted absentee ballot so had to fill in those little ovals....I had a swell time!

[Brasil]

This is mostly off topic but FOX NEWS had a clip of a polling place and a young man was wearing a T-shirt that said "I support BUSH" (or something to that effect.) Where I vote, it is forbidden to wear any political message or to do any campaigning with 100 feet of the polling place.

[oldfashionedvalues]

At my precinct in Tallahassee, aside from the fact that they looked at me "funny" - "Oh, Republican" (no too many of us here), the workers all smiled and were very friendly. Showed ID, signed, voted (#299), all in maybe five minutes. The kids were given stickers, everyone said bye. An easy, pleasant, experience as far as voting is concerned.
I just have to believe that the bitterness of 2000 is still strong in some parts of this state, and, there will always be chaos down south so as to put doubt into any election. Especially with the dislike for Jeb and President Bush by the rats. Unless Jeb in November, and President Bush in 2004, win by a couple of hundred thousand votes, I think there will be a controversy in southern Florida. ofv

[browardchad]

No problem voting in my precinct in Broward (ducking for cover). It was so easy, I voted three times (since there were no poll workers around) so I could test the different functions of the new machine, including the voice-acivation for the illiterate -- worked like a charm. I especially enjoyed the keyboard feature for the write-in votes, (although it wasn't clear how this feature might be used by the illiterate). I also discovered that if you press several buttons simultaneously, chads fall out.

On the way out, I caught a glimpse of Janet Reno driving by in her red pickup truck -- on the sidewalk of course.

South Floridians have the most fun.

[windchime]

I'm a Republican who served as a poll worker in a county (Hillsborough) with a Democrat Supervisor of Elections. Our training was excellent and the clerk (do not know what party) in charge of my assigned precinct was exemplary.

Other people with whom I worked (also of undetermined party) were dedicated and intelligent. Some had taken "personal days" from work to perform their civic duty. All arrived on time (6:00am). We worked in close proximity and I observed the highest quality "customer service". There was no complaint when we were told the polls would be open an additional two hours. All machines remained active until 9:00pm at which time all workers remained to ready equipment for transport to election headquarters.

Voters, who ran the gamut in age, were pleasant and appreciative of our need to request information that seemed redundant. Anyone needing instruction received it on a demo machine (placed in a location separate from the actual voting equipment). We had a steady flow of voters and nearly all were processed quickly. The exceptions were those with address/name changes for which additional paperwork had to be done.

Precinct changes due to redistricting provided the other exception to quick processing. If they weren't in our register, the paperwork was done and our precinct clerk called the elections office to determine where they belonged. Some came to our precinct after going to another that was incorrect. NOT ONE VOTER was turned away. If they left without voting, they had a form in their hand and were on their way to the correct precinct. There were two complainers, both non-minority males, the entire day. One voted and the other was headed to his precinct with form in hand.

Even the most tentative voter expressed approval of the system's ease!

And.....Governor Bush just got blamed again on Hardball. They said he'd just blame it on the Supervisors of Election.
In fact, he praised our Supervisor in a TV interview and suggested she could show the two aberrant counties how to run the election properly.

Ragtime Cowgirl,if this is more than you EVER wanted to know, feel free to edit.

[I still care]

I vote in the Suncoast. Also, my boys and some friends carried signs at the polls for one of our candidates, so we hit a lot of polling places. We saw 2 problems.

At one of the precincts, we couldn't leave the boys, because they arrived late to open the polling place. There was no one there at 7! From what I understand they finally opened about 1/2 hr late.

The other problem (that ticked me off)was at my polling place. The democratic candidate was there, handing his literature to the people before they went in. His people were standing about 20 feet from the door, but he was running all over to make sure they got the paper, and actually got me when I was about 5 feet from the door. I told him he was too close and he said, no he wasn't. I went up to the poll person (an old lady)and she said he was in the designated area. Funny, it didn't look like the designated area to me. But being he was a former sheriff I guess he thought the rules didn't apply to him.

[RollingThunder]

Amazingly, the Counties that had trouble are democRATic Counties. DemocRAT Supervisor of Elections, heavy democRAT turnouts.

Here in Pinellas County, I did have trouble when I voted. But it was corrected within a minute (the person who handed me the card didn't press one button. But I was given another card immediately, and voted with no problem.

But hold on to your hats folks (especially those of you in the Tampa Bay area. The St. Pete Times (Known to us as the Pravda West) actually ran an editorial in today's (9/13/02) saying not to blame Jeb for what happened on election day, but to blame the local supervisor of elections and the poll workers.

You know it's bad for the democRATs whem the Times doesn't attack Jeb for this.

[surely_you_jest]

My wife and I voted in Sarasota. We produced identification, signed in, voted and left. In under five minutes. Several other people were also voting. No signs of any difficulty whatsoever.

[peteram]

Local news had a clip this morning of an irate Reno ranting about how Bush is responsible for the problems in S. Florida. She was saying something to the effect that he had two years (since the 2000 elections) to fix the problems and they have not been fixed - that he did nothing!.

Forget the fact that he authorized some 3.5 million dollars to be spent on upgrading the systems. Many counties got the new touch screen systems.

So, she's decided to start the Dimocrap spin and make this an election issue by trying to blame him for the problems. I hope that most Floridians will see through this ploy. It was truly a disgusting display.

[MassExodus]

[swampman]

It was smooth as silk for me in Pinellas.

"It's not what you don't know that will hurt you, it's what you don't know that you don't know"

[RightOnline]

"Democrats will always have problems with elections because they are instructed to look for problems."

You're far too kind and diplomatic, darlin'.

Democrats will always have problems with elections because they tend to yer lower IQ stratum. IOW, the average Democratic voter has the approximate IQ of an asparagus.

By the way, I'm not being sarcastic in the least.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Jeb Bush thought he had the Florida voting booths licked. Idiot proof. Nitwit proof. Lunatic proof. He has yet to comprehend the depths of their black hole brains, the Last Fronteer, a place no sane person has gone before. If Captain Kirk tried to explore that endless void, he would cry, Scottie! Beam me up!

Here is what I suggest to Jeb Bush:

The people running the voting booths in various parts of Flori-duh need to be led by the hand like children.


"This is the enter button. It is spelled, E,N,T,E,R. You take your finger, yes, that's a finger, and push on the Enter Button. No, not your nose. No, your nose is not linked with the computer system. No, don't eat that... This is a cartridge. Yes. This thingie in my hand. I said... cart-ridge. No, I said, CART-RIDGE. Yes. You need to... no. Don't put the cartridge in your mouth...

Don't trust these guys with play-dough.

[Dutchgirl]

In Duval County, my poll at Trinity Lutheran Church opened on time at 7am, and I voted before work. Trinity has an established group of poll workers, and this year, with re-apportionments, they were sharing space with a less experienced group. The old pro's were monitoring the new group to make sure they did it right. I could hear a dispute that ensued when someone was handed a Democrat ballot that they didn't want. On my side, I showed my ID, signed in and was given the correct Republican ballot. After filling it out, I brought it, in its privacy folder, over to the scanner. The gentleman who was manning the scanner explained that I could put it in with either side up and it would be counted, but he recommended that I place it with the marked side down for privacy. I was in and out in five minutes.