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My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

portal.drewdevault.com

231–240 of 358 posts

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question is, what department allows their on-duty officers to wear non-uniform clothing articles for routine public assignments?

In some jurisdictions --- I don't know how common this is, but it's the case in mine --- uniformed police officers are prohibited from the polling place unless requested by election judges because of the potential that it will create a voter intimidation situation (keep in mind that these law enforcement officers are under the command of one of the people on the ballot). So I would conjecture that some areas may ask…

I don't think that is the case in PA. In fact, constables are required to be at the polls.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a logo that is more strongly associated with one political party than another, being worn by someone who is presumably armed and in a position of authority. If you cannot see why this is a problem, I don't think I can explain it any more.

There is a difference between being in bad taste and being illegal.

> There is a difference between being in bad taste and being illegal.

It's called "letter of the law" vs "spirit of the law",

Purposely violating the principle of the law by abusing loopholes, and proceeding to claim that technically violating the spirit of the law is not illegal because you came up with a loophole that you believe is not incompatible with the letter of the law just goes to show the level of dedication that you have to break the law without being punished for your transgression.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an optional secret ballot in all the votes. So does oregon who was doing vote by mail before it was cool...

Oregon has one of the worst voter-registration online systems in the country however, a date of birth + residency will give access to party registration of the individual, alongside some other information I believe.

IIRC Oregon is one of the states that sells a big CSV of every registered voters name, address, and party affiliation. So really all they're doing is competing with their own business

Quick edit: It's $500 to get data for everyone in the state, but there might be an extra fee if you want to know when they voted

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#235
post #125

Biden only gets lucky in PA a full day after that if you look at vote share per batch, well after in-person votes are counted, and the later you go, the luckier he gets. The pattern is the same in every swing state except Arizona, and in Virginia as well. If you plot out Edison data that has vote count updates, in "normal" states (both Biden and Trump dominant), things are chaotic initially (when in-person votes are…

It's only "luck" if votes are counted in a random and independent order, which I don't think is the case in PA

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The American flag with the military oath of enlistment" is not "the American flag", but rather an attempt to make some kind of statement. At best it's political support of the military, at worst it's a possible dog whistle.

A dog whistle for what? There's an awful lot of cagey presumption going on in every reiteration of this claim.

> A dog whistle for what? There's an awful lot of cagey presumption going on in every reiteration of this claim.

I'm not a US citizen nor I ever set foot in the US, and even from afar the quasi-fanarical displays of support for the US armed forces is a hallmark of supporters of the Republican party.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#237
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your party affiliation is a matter of public record, and you're not required to vote for your party. Not really a big deal IMO. Any attempt by the election workers to suppress your vote based on your answer would be trivially detected by a number of security checks.

You're dodging the allegation. It's not that it's not public information or that it must dictate the vote. It's that there's no reason for the poll worker to ask or know what you party registration is prior to sending to you machine A or machine B. At best it's a non-issue, at worst it's an opportunity to steer voters to a broken machine. Any comparison of total turnout v.s. historic turnout based upon political part…

It may also be left over from the SOP for primary elections, where your party registration does determine which ballot you get.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#238
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on my long experience in California, I have no idea what you could be referring to. I am given ballot(s) in an opaque folder, mark my choices in a booth enclosed on three sides, and feed the ballots into the machine myself. There's no way for a poll worker to observe me making the choices, or the marked ballot. I suppose in theory they could use the order in which people enter to locate a ballot after the fact,…

In my experience, if the machine beeps and spits your ballot out, which it will always do if you don't vote on some of the elections (and I never vote the stuff I don't know about, like school boards) then the poll worker will grab it and try to shove it back in. I don't think they are trying to invade your privacy, they just are trying to be helpful. But, in the end, they aren't respecting the secrecy of my ballot.

In San Francisco, at least, the counting machine is programmed not to reject an undervote (it will reject overvotes and other mistakes)

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the differences?

I voted in Allegheny County. We filled in bubbles on paper, and then at the end, put our ballots in what looked like a scantron machine. It had a screen with a simple confirmation message (something like "thank you for voting") that lit up after it scanned your ballot. I also wasn't asked my party affiliation.

Wow, that's much different. I wonder if the machines are unique to Philly, then.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I voted in Allegheny County. We filled in bubbles on paper, and then at the end, put our ballots in what looked like a scantron machine. It had a screen with a simple confirmation message (something like "thank you for voting") that lit up after it scanned your ballot. I also wasn't asked my party affiliation.

Wow, that's much different. I wonder if the machines are unique to Philly, then.

If it helps, the machines described in OP sound similar to what we used here four years ago. I haven't voted in between though so I'm not sure when the switchover actually took place here.
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