Primaries Today

[Squid]

Remember to vote today.

http://www.secstate.wa.gov/

 

Pick a party and vote straight along the party lines, or your vote won't count

[Off_White]

I just voted down in Thurston County, and it was unbeliveably sucky, mostly due to ballot design (which happens on a county by county basis, odds are your experience will be better).

 

We get handed a bundle that contains four (4!) ballots: one R, one D, one Libertarian, and a Non-Partisan in case all you want to vote on is levies and judges. You have to pick the one you want to use, put the others in a pile. Taking your punchcard, about 2-1/2" wide and 6" long, with 200 numbers and perforated tiny rectangles, you have read through the accordian folded multi-purpose ballot form, complete with free-floating your-precint-only insert, read the races, pick the number, find, say #174 on the card, punch it out while holding the ballot, scrape the hanging chad off the back, and move on to the next question. Given the design and multiple ballots, the old style slide-the-ballot-onto-the-pins machine, with integral ballot instructions, would not work. I thought is sucked green donkey dicks, and I couldn't imagine being an 82 year old guy with parkinsons and bad eyesight trying to punch out these tiny tabs. After turning in the correct ballot, you have to take the ones you didn't use and throw them away.

 

On the plus side, maybe we'll get some of that great publicity Dade County, Florida got in 2000.

It pissed me off, and I love to vote!

[Squid]

OW-

That's the new statewide system. Sam Reed (secretary of state, the guy to blame for this fiasco) fondles hc.

View the voting guidelines.

[Off_White]

I thought I'd heard others have everything combined on one ballot? I'm all aware of the "vote only for one party" business, and I'm not a fan of it.

[Squid]

oops, you're right. Some counties have multiple ballots, some have a single ballot.