And now I can be all self-righteous about it for days.
Why is that important? Well, living in Hampton Heights, I just cast my vote at the Southside Baptist Church voting station at 316 South Church St. And you know what? It was poorly marked. I’m told there was a sign out front, but it must have been visible from just one side of the road, as I never saw it. Not only that, but when I asked some of the people from the church itself about whether or not I had the right place, none of them knew what I was talking about.
So, I went around back — again, no signs to tell me to do that, it was just an off-handed suggestion by one of the church people — and managed to find a small annex building with a few small, photocopied “signs” saying this was the voting station.
Logistically speaking, this was a total failure. And what’s more, this was right before lunch, yet I was the only voter in the place, outnumbered four-to-one by the poll workers. I asked them about the signs, and they said there was one up by the road. I said I didn’t see it, and one of them responded with “This must be your first time here here.”
Obviously.
But I can’t be alone in thinking that no one should be expected to sort of psychically “know” that the voting station was all the way around the back of the building in a small, mostly unmarked office with no directions saying “Voting in back … no, around here you dolt” or something. Lots of signs, lots of arrows. Maybe even a poll worker at a card table directing people to the station, since it’s hardly visible from the road. Isn’t the goal here to make this as easy as humanly possible for voters?
And why was this in a back room of the church? The Headquarters Library is literally two blocks away, huge, central and just as suited for this kind of thing as a back annex building to a church. And it’s not like there was a crush of people there.
I’m not blaming the poll workers — I’m sure they were doing what they could — but this whole arrangement reeked of “low priority.”
I should also point out that living in Hampton Heights, I had almost no one to vote for: I’m in City Council district 3 (held by Robert Reeder until 2012) and School District 7-9. Neither had elections this year. So, my one and only voting option was for Mayor. That’s fine, and in my case it was a good excuse for a walk, but it’s hardly any wonder the turnout for local voting tends to be light on these off-year elections. If your options are hunt around for your voting station on your lunch hour to vote for a single office, or go to Quizno’s, I can see why there’s a touch of voter apathy in these parts.
But enough about that. Let’s hear your voting story!
Steve Shanafelt
I vote in the same place you do. I was first. At 8am. Which was kinda sad because I know that’s telling for the day. I got to look in the box and confirm that there was nothing in it. Never done that before. My 3 year old went with me and pushed the buttons. She was thrilled. My 6 yr. old said, “we get to vote for Junie White today.” I said ‘Yep.”
He said “I hope no one votes for George Bush…he’d make a horrible Mayor.”
I said, Amen Brother.
Oops. I wonder how many thumbs down that will get me.
Given the Tea Party sentiment around here, I’m not sure George Bush could even get elected dog catcher.
I vote at Mt. Moriah, and I was by myself there at 7:40 this morning. There had been a handful of people to vote before me. I’m also in city council district 3 and school board district 7-9, so the only thing I had to vote for was mayor. I figure that many of us in that precinct will be in the same boat.
Church Street is the dividing line between the Central Fire Station precinct (which includes Hampton Heights and actually votes, as Steve notes, at Southside Baptist) and the Mount Moriah precinct, which used to be called the Carver Junior High precinct. Of course, Mt. Moriah Baptist and Southside Baptist are nearly across the street from each other, and I have passed Southside Baptist ever time I’ve gone to vote. And when I move in the next few weeks, I’ll be switching precincts and voting over there. I’m glad to know that you have to look fairly hard for the place to vote at Southside so I’ll be ready to go exploring.
The Mt. Moriah precinct isn’t very well marked, at least if you are driving or walking along Church Street. Once in the parking lot, it’s easier to find.
Oh, and the main library isn’t actually physically in the Central Fire Station precinct, despite being less than what, 750 feet from it? So I don’t think you could use that as a polling station.
One of my friends who votes at another precinct told me that there was electioneering going on at the entrance to the polling place – which is a no-no.
I was a little bit surprised by what is allowed at polls. The poll manager manual for SC states that no signs or campaign materials are allowed within 200 feet of the entrance to the polling place, but that candidates and campaign workers/volunteers are allowed to verbally encourage voters to vote for their candidate at any distance outside of the entrance. Once inside, though, that is no longer allowed.
I had also thought that 200 feet from the entrance was the no man’s land of campaigning.
That’s interesting. Apparently that is what was going on at one of the Duncan Park precincts – it was outside of the polling place, but just barely, as in, a rep. for a campaign was holding the door for people as they entered.
Yep, that did happen. I knew from my voter ID that I had to vote at Cornerstone Baptist; however, the only way I knew which door was the entrance was because of the of signs across the street from the main entrance. As I walked to the door, a person claiming to be Cate Ryba’s father asked me to vote for her. When I got to the door, a man opened the door for me, and when I turned to thank him, he simply said, “Vote Belenchia for small business.” It was quite off-putting.
I agree that the candidates and their representatives standing at the door way is QUITE off-putting. I was accosted by three and this was after dusk. I didn’t like that at all. I even asked the poll workers and they confirmed that that was allowed.
I voted at Trinity Methodist Church in Converse Heights and was the 12th voter at roughly 7:15 this morning. While obviously much, much lower than a national election turnout, I was kinda encouraged that there had been 11 folks before me at such an early hour.
Lucas, I must have been right in front of you…I was #10 at Trinity at about 7:10. I was encouraged as well by the turnout…kinda hoping that means good news for Cate Ryba.
Interesting note on the Trinity poll site…there was a gentleman who was the “poll observer” with the last name Belenchia on his name tag.
Are you talking about the fellow who sat immediately to the right of where the elderly folks signed us in? I kept staring at his name tag (but couldn’t read it). He looked like Rick Beltram to me, but I wouldn’t swear by it.
Yes, that is the guy I’m talking about. I agree, it did look like Betram, but I glanced at the name tag and it said “Belenchia”. I’ve just been real curious about that.
My wife and I went separately…she went about mid-afternoon and said that Belenchia was out in front of Trinity, shaking hands and asking for votes.
Oh well, guess its kind of a moot point right now. Personally, I’m just glad that Cate Ryba won, and won handily. I am encouraged by the fact that people in Spartanburg see what she could bring to the table.
Candidates can have poll watchers inside. (I did this once MANY moons ago in another state.) They have strict observation only rules. There are very few instances where they are allowed to speak up. The nametag may just indicate the candidate represented and not the poll watcher’s personal name. I don’t know the rules on that here in SC.
I too voted at Southside Baptist Church for the first time. I entered from Church St, saw the “Vote Here” sign and was still equally misled as to the actual location of the polls.
Despite having the official voting registration card, my name and information was not on the list. Poll operators phoned to look me up and gave me the ballot for city council District 3. This is troubling to me because months ago after I registered I looked up my location (on a SC website) and believed I was eligible to vote in District 4. (I double checked and i now see it was only my congressional district. blah)
I believe they were correct in placing me in District 3 but the whole process bothers me. This information should be printed on the card and the polls should be clearly marked.
Negative tone aside I must commend the poll workers on their kindness, courtesy and thoroughness. They were very pleasant to interact with and I trust my ballot was correct.
I’m still only registered to vote in Minnesota, not South Carolina. =( Where can you go to register? How do you find out what precinct you’re in? I’m amazed at the lack of information around here- walking around downtown Minneapolis, I would have someone holding a clipboard asking me if I’ve registered to vote seemingly every third day.
http://www.state.sc.us/scsec/vr.html
I will leave out my reply to your “back where I’m from, we do it this way” comments.
OK, RW, get out there and register!
…My printer is still broken lol. Will you bring me a copy of the form on Friday? Thanks.
Thank you for the link.
Just sayin’, you’d think they’d mention it on the news, in the paper, on a PSA, ETV, a billboard, etc., how to find this stuff out. You’d think there’d be booths set up at festivals, outdoor concerts, etc., so people can register to vote on the spot without having to put in the effort to hunt down the form and mail it in. It’s hard enough to get people who have already registered to vote, why make it hard just to register?
You know, even being a low level “politico” here in the county, I still didn’t know who to vote for in School District Six. We were to choose 5, and I only heard of 4, 2 of which I was planning to vote for.
Had no trouble at the polls though. I was #109.
Seafilm – Did your registration card not come with a breakdown of the districts you are in? Should have been a white tear-off section attached to the card, unless they changed that. And voting precincts may be overlapped by several districts.
I live in Boiling Springs and they’ve really upped the number of precincts this year after the debacle of Election Day 2008. I still vote in the same location though (Boiling Springs High School) and there were no signs to tell you where to turn in to get to the voting area which is back behind the school. I only knew of it because of my familiarity with the school grounds. Once we parked, we then finally saw a half-assed handwritten sign telling us where to go. Once I finally found where to enter, I attempted to make a joke to the poll workers about how this year was different from last year (where I had to wait for hours to vote) and got a cold look. Sigh. Maybe my pink hair (leftover from Halloween) scared them, I don’t know? All that said, when I went to pick up my son from Boiling Springs Elementary (another voting precinct which is maybe 2 miles away), there were tons of signs and everything was very clearly labelled as to where to park, where to find parking for handicapped voting, huge signs where to enter the building- they had the place set up for voting. And a very stark contrast to my precinct.
Oh yeah- I forgot to mention that I was voter #46 and this was at 2:00 in the afternoon. I wonder what the final turnout number will be.
I vote at Jesse Boyd and there were no signs there that I saw but at least there was a poll worker directing you were to go.I was #20 at 8:00
The sense I have gotten of all of these remarks, if I may be so bold as to summarize, is that in general, polling places are poorly identified – while you may be able to find out the place where you vote on your voter registration card, from the registration and elections office, or online, you still have to go looking for the exact place where you vote. If you have voted at the same spot for years, this isn’t a problem, but if you are new, it certainly is. Knowing where in a strange church to go, when there are no signs as you enter a parking lot or on the street in front of the building, seems to be a problem. And if a church or public building is going to agree to be a polling place, it seems to me that they take on an obligation to make sure all of their employees know where to direct people who wander in looking lost rather than say, I don’t know. Saying “I don’t know” should immediately be followed by “Let’s find out.”
I would say that 99.44 percent of the turnout issue in the city and school board races is because this is an off-year election. Historically, people don’t turn out to vote in the mid-term elections (2006, 2010) in the same numbers that they turn out in the presidential election year. And when you get to an odd-numbered year, you really see the numbers dwindle. Which is sad, because city and school board elections can have such a tremendous impact on your community. The cynic (and southern historian) in me might wonder if at some level, the people years before wanted to make sure that voter turnout was depressed in certain elections. A few states do have their elections for governor and their legislature in odd-numbered years.
I suspect that the lack of people out with clipboards trying to register voters reflects the low interest in off-year elections in general. Nobody, I guess, felt it was worth their time to mount a voter registration drive for these races.
I vote at the Woodland Heights Rec Center. I was voter number 100 at 6:40p.m. Sad, really.
Interestingly though, something happened that hasn’t happened in my 29 years of voting: all the candidates that I cast my ballot for WON. Alas, if that had been the case, lo these 29 years – OK, well the last 25 anyway – this world might be a much different place!