Well, this is my first diary post, and I WOULD pick election day. I have a good reason though, and hope that others will chime in to report their experiences. I'll be monitoring messages and comments. I want you to know I passed up a chance to attend a workshop where Houston's mayor is speaking so I could go to the polls early this morning ... As it turns out, I'm glad I did.
So, here goes. Just finished voting around 8:30 am, November 4, and it was an eye-popping experience, for the first time in years, for me. To provide some context, I was in that first group of 18-year-olds that got the vote back in the 70s, and I vote almost religiously. It's a right I cherish.
I live in a small Houston metro suburb these days some 10-15 miles west of NASA. Population around 24,000 people, largely undeveloped as of yet, fairly quiet as of yet. So, should be easy to vote today, right? WRONG. I just had a disturbing experience getting through the new ID process. Wonder how many other people are being affected?
Before I tell you what my experience was like, a word of advice. Check your voter ID Card for your designated precinct number, then verify your polling place on your TEXAS County or TEXAS Secretary of State website - you might save yourself some extra time and aggravation.
(See below the fold)
Here in Texas, this is the first time the new voter ID law has been implemented after SCotUS issued a ruling allowing the law, which was declared unconstitutional on appeal, go forward for this election cycle, so as not to 'confuse anyone' (?). So, being the curious type, I felt compelled to observe my fellow citizens try to navigate, to see what happened. I walked into the poll with 10-15 other people around 8 am, we stood in line for 5 minutes each to get our IDs checked, and I am the ONLY one who got to vote there, out of that particular group. And it was a test of my patience, and I am NOT a patient woman.
I had to show my TEXAS Driver's licencse (ACCEPTED LEGAL PHOTO ID) three times. First of all, had to show it to each registrar, and there was some confusion because they thought it was my voter's registration card, then asked why I hadn't given them that first (because it ISN'T an ACCEPTED LEGAL PHOTO ID?). Then, I had to verify verbally what was on my license while the registrar hid my license from my view (WTF?).
When I asked, they said they still needed to verify if I was truly who I said I was and who my license identified me as. Then I verified the info on my license and voter registration card, printed by the registrar onto a paper receipt. Another discussion ensued: the first poll worker attempted to redirect me to another voting location on the other side of town. Since I had checked with the county registrar's office BEFORE I went to the polling place, and I live FOUR blocks from my polling place I knew that wasn't right, and said so.
When I was told to leave like nearly all of the others that came in around the same time I did, I insisted that the poll workers check again. Twice. Finally, I got a paper receipt to show to a SECOND registrar, so I could be given another receipt with the magic code documenting my name and vitals, and my ballot number, that allowed me to login to use the electronic voting machine (I thought voting was supposed to be anonymous????).
Then it got interesting as I learned that there are TEN precincts in this town of 24, 000. I heard four people decide not to to vote after all, because of all the questions and hassle. Two more decided they would have to try to vote after work, or on their lunch hour (I thought that, by law, we were given one hour of paid time to vote in national elections - comment, anyone?). Several more argued, saying they'd just been sent to the polling place I was at, by poll workers at other precincts. And so on, and so forth ...
I could comment on WHY I and some of the others were being redirected, but I will try to restrain myself ... NAH, I lied. Might it be that the group that I walked in with was mostly Hispanic or African American, and after checking ONE person's ID they assumed we all came from the same place? That IS what the registrars did, actually. Found that out when I argued.
The really interesting incident involved a young white woman who came in with a voter's registration card, and tried to vote. When asked for her PHOTO ID, she said she had driven in from another small town 20 miles away without a drivers' license (forgot and left it with her husband), argued that she's voted there before, etc., etc). The poll workers did their job and turned her away, but I'm just not sure they wanted to. She was advised to go home and get her license before returning.
When the young woman began to whine that she didn't have TIME to go 'all the way' home and get her license, and had always voted there before and she guessed that she'd just have to give up the idea of voting in a very important election, they told her she had until 7 pm, and asked her where she lived. They looked her polling place up, based on what she SAID. Turns out she didn't even live here, but had been voting from her parents' address, which was on her VALID voter's registration card.
She was treated a lot better than I was, as were white voters who came in shortly after the group of mostly minority voters. And all the while some of them stood there and smirked while she was coddled and the persons of color were hassled and subjected to what appeared to be, to me, extra-careful scrutiny.
So, my fellow voters, anyone else see something like this?