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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

What You're Seeing Out There

We asked readers to tell us what they're seeing out there and one Norwood resident sent us this dispatch from MS 80 on Mosholu Parkway in Norwood.

I vote at MS 80 on Mosholu Parkway -- To vote here you need to be persistent - there is a line of parents and kids trying to get there kids registered that I had to push - pass - then I had to firmly tell the school guard (an obnoxious fellow) that no I did not need to get on his line -  I finally just walked around him.

When I got to the cafeteria - the workers were in turmoil -- only one of the scanners was working.  The "Captain" for the site had never showed.  A woman was taking charge who actually seemed to know what she was doing but the other workers were not paying much attention.  The woman who I asked to double check the book for my ED did not know how to look up an address - I showed her.  I also had to find my name in the book with the signatures. 
 
Just up the hill from MS 80, BxNN guest blogger Gregory Lobo Jost had this to say in a comment earlier about voting at St. Brendan's School.
No problems for me at Saint Brendan's. I went at 8am and it was not crowded, but there was a steady trickle of folks coming in to vote. I was worried about the new voting system, but it was very smooth, and our poll workers were helpful and seemed to have things under control.

There were two scanners in operation. I didn't check the number on mine, but I heard the other machine was up to vote #24.

Outside the polling site on 207th heading just west of the school were two Espada staffers/volunteers (not looking enthused at all) and one Rivera staff/volunteer who seemed upbeat.
Please keep letting us know what you're seeing and experiencing at the polls.

2 comments:

  1. Voted early this morning at the Dekalb Avenue Community Center. The process was a breeze; getting there was not. Pedro Espada's thugs where out in full force: I know the blond woman wearing the Espada shirt that confronted me was NOT from the neighborhood. This happened TWICE before I even got to the poll site. These pushy interlopers where within the 100 ft limit of the site so I reported them to the poll worker.

    The site was buzzing with activity. I guess I wasn't the only one that would be shamed if Espada was the our nominee...a man with more rackets then the US Open.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I also voted at St. Brendan's, at about 6:20 am.

    When I arrived, they were still setting up, and I was actually the first voter through the door. In addition to the lack of set-up, the workers seemed somewhat confused about the process.

    After I waited for the poll worker to locate the ballots, she handed one to me without a "privacy sleeve." When I asked for one, she looked confused, consulted with another worker, then went to search for them.

    As this was going on, one of my neighbors had arrived in line behind me with her daughter, but she decided she couldn't keep waiting and left. (Hopefully she came back after work!!!)

    Then I went over to one of the "privacy booths," where there were no pens. I had one, and filled in my ballot, then informed one of the workers that the pens had not been attached to any of the privacy booths.

    Now it was time to scan my ballot. When I got to the scanner, though, the worker there wanted the green card from the first poll worker, which she had kept. More waiting and consultation....

    By then, two other voters had managed to navigate the process before me... and both their ballots had generated an error message on the scanning machines. The message indicated that the vote had been counted, but there was an error dropping the ballot into the box or something. So, I got to wait a little longer for the poll workers to try reaching a technical support person (which didn't seem to be happening).

    Eventually I was able to scan my ballot, which generated the same message. Hopefully the vote was, in fact, counted, as the scanner indicated.

    This was all rather stressful when the place was still essentially empty, so I am glad to hear that these problems seem to have been worked out by the time Greg got there.

    ReplyDelete

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