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My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

portal.drewdevault.com

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Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#51

Post by est31 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #24
estebank wrote: post #13

As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for. Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).

A reminder here that it varies MASSIVELY state by state. Some states definitely are NOT for increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible and plenty of states have way more in regards to hiding your vote from the poll workers

But if you want to participate more in the elections than just R vs D, say, decide which candidate R or D should elect, then you land in a public registry, no?

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#52

Post by tomku »

estebank wrote: post #13

As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for. Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).

Can't speak for other places, but every time I've voted in-person in Wisconsin it has been through a procedure that doesn't involve the poll workers seeing my ballot after they give it to me. After getting a folder containing a ballot, I take it over to a closed stall to mark it and feed it directly into the scanning machine when I'm done. Safe, secure and results in immediately knowing that your ballot is valid and accepted.

As a sibling comment mentions, states and cities have a great deal of freedom in terms of the "how" of voting and some do it better than others.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#53

Post by Fellshard »

AGSYS wrote: post #50
Fellshard wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_Keepers

That is not what the Thin Blue Line represents.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#54

Post by brandmeyer »

pontus wrote: post #9
juanbyrge wrote: post #4

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

I used to be in your camp, but ultimately I think the decentralization and heterogeneity of the election processes provides a non-trivial layer of "security by obfuscation". In other words, if we streamline the process too well, we'll find ourselves with a system with a handful of highly vulnerable points of failure. I would much prefer a seemingly archaic system that, at the cost of annoyances and delays, at least p…

It also makes it much easier to directly observe which systems work better and which systems don't. Imagine for a moment that the entire country was using the exact same ballot process in 2000: The punch system that lead to so much ambiguity in FL. Its one thing to look at a system and say in the abstract "this could be much more reliable." Its another entirely to say "Look at states X, Y, and Z: Their process is actually much more reliable".

I expect the same thing to happen after this election. Once things calm down, several states are going to improve their processes.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#55

Post by kev009 »

mmastrac wrote: post #34
dx87 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "thin blue line" flag also doesn't fit any of the banned criteria. You guys are basically saying that supporting police and military is only done by republicans.

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.

Since it is less incendiary to discuss, what if someone was wearing a Rastafarian style hat in places marijuana bills were on the ballot, is this a conflict?

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#56

Post by mindslight »

dx87 wrote: post #37
mindslight wrote: post #27

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.

So which of "candidate, campaign, or political party" is it? The Biden and Trump campaigns openly supported the military.

It's a "campaign" on its own, but possibly all of those depending on context. I don't know what that exact context is, but it's not on me or the poll workers to know every political meme going around. A bastardized American flag is not just an American flag as you've asserted, but rather an overt political statement.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#57

Post by thedream »

dx87 wrote: post #32
mmastrac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem much different than a "thin blue line" flag. I'd feel the same way as Drew in this situation. If you want to wear a flag, wear a flag.

A "thin blue line" flag also doesn't fit any of the banned criteria. You guys are basically saying that supporting police and military is only done by republicans.

Imagine a group of programmers unable to tell the difference between "violates the rules" and "hurts my political feelings"... yikes.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#58

Post by wnissen »

estebank wrote: post #13

As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for. Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).

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, but that would involve riffling through a stack of ballots!

Voting is county by county, and it is run by human beings that make mistakes, but in the dozens of times I have voted the secrecy of my ballot has been entirely up to me. Party affiliation is not a secret, true, it is a public record. But the actual Please provide a lot more context than "how easy it can be" or please delete your post.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#59

Post by mrguyorama »

est31 wrote: post #51
mrguyorama wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reminder here that it varies MASSIVELY state by state. Some states definitely are NOT for increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible and plenty of states have way more in regards to hiding your vote from the poll workers

But if you want to participate more in the elections than just R vs D, say, decide which candidate R or D should elect, then you land in a public registry, no?

I think some states let you participate in primaries as an unaffiliated voter

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#60

Post by CameronNemo »

mmastrac wrote: post #34
dx87 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "thin blue line" flag also doesn't fit any of the banned criteria. You guys are basically saying that supporting police and military is only done by republicans.

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.
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