November 07, 2006
Happy Voting Day...Or Not
Disenfranchised
dis•en•fran•chise 
adj : deprived of the rights of citizenship especially the right to vote.
Today, this was the word of the day for me.
Typically, I get out there early in the morning to do my civic duty. Today, however, I had an early meeting at work (that got cancelled), then had to deal with a bunch of fires.
I did get to leave early, however, and thinking it would be a cool idea to show Allie what voting is all about, I made a quick stop at home and headed to the polls.
I stopped some folks as they were coming out, and they said it took them a little more than an hour. Not too bad...but they also said that some of the computers had gone down. My first thought was, "oh great, the voting machines have gone haywire like all the naysayers thought they would." But as I got inside and stood in line #1, I found out that it was actually the computer that looks up the person's eligibility to vote in Adams County.
Well, about 30 minutes in, we got word that 2 computers were up...a cheer went out through the line. So, I got through the first line in about 35 minutes or so...that was to "check in" and get your signature card updated. Next step was to get in line #2 and get the slip of paper that allowed you into the voting room. Here's where the issue was.
Apparently, they were set up to access a large database of all Adams County residents. So were all the polling places in Adams County. They had to access this database in order to confirm the person's eligibility to vote in the county. But due to several factors (the main one being SO many computers accessing the same database), the information was not flowing as well as it should have. In fact, only about 1 person per minute or two (some folks had to wait 5-10 minutes to get the o.k.) were getting into the voting machine room.
Sadly, there were about 10-12 voting terminals just waiting to be used, but nobody was in there.
After timing some of the folks getting their voting pass, and doing some quick math based on the number of people ahead of me, I think that I would have been there about another 2 hours or so. Well, since I had Allie with me and neither of us had dinner yet (we were going to go vote, then head back to help celebrate Bix's birthday with a nice dinner), I made the executive decision to leave. It was a frustrating decision to say the least, because I do feel strongly that people should get out there and vote for the people and the topics that they feel passionate about.
I know that in 2 years, I'll get to take Allie back and show her, once again, the process, but I feel cheated.
An open letter to the folks who get this all ready: PLEASE be better prepared in 2008. Computers are a wonderful thing, but you need to make sure that your servers can handle the loads. You need to make sure that the polling places have the proper equipment to get folks in and through the lines as quickly as possible. And you need to do a test run, or two, or three...
I hope most or all of you were able to do what I could not today. I hope you voted for the issues that will help you and your families. I hope that you were able to make a difference!
-Myles-
Comments
Yeah, I read in the news that Colorado was one of the worst places to vote. All went well up here in Wyoming. Took me a total of 15 from the time I walked in until the time I received my "I Voted" sticker! Sorry you had hard times and weren't able to vote, Meelos. This is why all the democrats won this time. . .you was ROBBED! ;)