Yep. I worked as an election judge - if the voter is in line at the time the polls close, they get to vote.

I was a judge in Nederwald, TX - population in the dozens. This was not a problem for us. :)

This is really cool - I wish that Illinois would do that, but politics here have never been "old school." However, the thought that chads are still around puts terror into my heart. Hanging chads can give nightmares to anyone who is politically minded.:)

Uhhh oooh... Chads are still around? I thought we changed to the "fill-in-the-circle" ballots nation-wide.

I didn't grow up in Idaho, and when I voted here I couldn't believe it was retro. You have to go to the Fairgrounds, ID isn't required, and you can even register day of. We have these little push pin things that pop out for the candidate. All the poll workers are little old ladies, aka the blue haired mafia.

Where I grew up we voted in the neighborhood, a school cafeteria, church basement, someone's garage, etc., after spending time in Alaska I am thoroughly impressed with their system. My friend is from Southeast Alaska, goes to school in Fairbanks, and she told me every single polling place in the state has every single ballot for every town, village, city, borough and so on. They set up on the UAF campus but you can vote at any place in the state, it is a scantron sheet, and they read it and the results are electronically sent to Juneau.

In Illinois, you have to mark your paper ballot with a special pen that we give you & take back before you leave (sounds like rush). We give a piece of paper indicating how to mark the ballot: by drawing a straight line between the head of an arrow and the tail end. As a Pi Phi, I like that arrows are used in the election process. Sounds easy enough? You would be amazed how many "spoiled ballots" are produced by people who can't do it right and have to be coached on how to mark this type of ballot.

As a solution, voters in Chicago are encouraged to vote on the "touch-screen" machines. You put a special card in that is given by the election judge and leave it in until you are done voting. But alot of people are still afraid to do this and want to use a paper ballot. The upside of all this is that no hanging chads are produced!!!:)

(Bold mine)

If you're old enough and mature enough to vote, you have an obligation to know the rules. Most states require that ANY change in the rules be stated for public consumption, either in the various newspapers, signs, etc. I've never been a judge of elections (I was "hatched"), but served on the Board for 12 years - I had to cancel out votes for my father or mother more than once, because people didn't know the rules. And yes, if you are in line (or at a designated spot) prior to the closing of the polls, you should be able to vote. We always put a sign on the one door (people had to go through 2 sets of doors to get to our polling place) that anyone past that door at 8pm would NOT be admitted.

We still have those. Problem is, Diebold (who makes the machine) does not guarantee accuracy! Voting machines are unreliable and inaccurate

Thanks! I'm good to go. :D I knew I've been registered for over a year, but I get paranoid and wonder if I got knocked off the list for some reason...this calmed my nerves!

i refuse to do the electronic ballots, way more stories of voter fraud.

speaking of voter fraud, i got my own taste of it this year.
i was worried because it was october 30th, and i hadn't received my registration card. i called the county registrar and was told my registration was canceled because my license number was invalid. i was confused, because i used their website "am i registered" and with my driver's license discovered i was still registered in my previous county of residence.

so i was told i had to go to the county registrar's office on friday before 7pm for early voting to fill out paperwork and a provisional ballot, which would be counted only after all of my information was validated.

i got there, filled out my paperwork and was called up. they then told me my registration wasn't processed because it was incomplete. i mentioned that the person i spoke with before told me it was because my license wasn't coming up as valid. the fact that i was getting a different story already made me wary. the clerk pulled up the form i sent in and was confused, as my form was complete, everything was correct, including my license number, cross referenced with the card.

so after all this i was told it was fixed in the system and my registration card would be mailed to me in a few days, and to proceed down the hall with a post-it with my registration number and vote.

crisis averted, but still, i felt very disenfranchised at first. if i hadn't inquired before early voting ended, i would have been screwed out of my vote. why did the registrar randomly decide my registration wasn't good enough?

Me, too. I went through the demonstration class with my aunt, and I'm terribly unimpressed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the problems in Ohio & Pennsylvania tie things up.

You're in Travis County, right? I've already heard a few horror stories coming out of there.

I filled out a paper ballot since I went absentee. There's no question who I voted for. :) In my home precinct, they used to do the electronic ballots, but now I believe they do Scantrons.

I understand the problems that are possible with the Diebold machine, but doesn't it seem that there ought to be a way to do secure electronic voting?

It's not the case that there was no voter fraud with paper ballots, so while they do at least offer a paper trail, it seems to me that with everything that we are willing to accept the security of electronically, that it ought to be possible to have secure and accurate electronic voting.

I mean, think about the whole scan form procedure. Why would that be a whole lot more secure? Is the idea that if the totals were manipulated when the computer counted them, you'd at least have the paper forms to compare them too? Wouldn't the same be true with touch screen votes that printed two receipts: one for the voter and one for the polling station?

The problem is with the Diebold machines that do not print a paper receipt.

Some states/precincts have set it up so that they do, so that's a better system.

Yeah, the paper receipt would be an improvement, but I'm really just surprised by folks who feel like paper ballots are as far as we should ever take voting in terms of technology, and it just doesn't make sense to me, seeing that paper ballots aren't foolproof in terms of fraud and improvements could likely be make to electronic voting.

We vote statewide on Diebold, and it doesn't bother me that much. I feel like trying to perfect electronic voting makes more sense than using a zillion different paper methods.

Without paper, though, Gore couldn't have screamed about Florida.