I enjoyed the experience and the other judges of both parties were all nice to work with. I didn't like getting up at 4:15am to arrive at the polling place by five. The last time I was awake at 4am I had stayed up all night with a roller derby team. That was much more fun.
The most exciting moment was seeing a line of people gathered outside the polling place when we opened at 6:00am. For the first three hours we averaged about a voter a minute in my precinct. There were lines during parts of the day but I don't think anyone had a long wait. Things went smoothly.
In the late afternoon we reached 1,000 voters between the two precincts in that polling place. I let everyone know and all the judges cheered for lucky voter number 1,000. I told her she won a free parking space but mostly she just looked embarrassed.
Two people in my precinct who wanted to vote were purged from the voter rolls. In at least one case it was determined to be an error and he was allowed to vote after we spoke with the election office.
The most obvious barrier to voting I saw Tuesday is a perfectly legal one: the voter registration deadline. The most common problem I witnessed was people who didn't update their voter registration when they moved. In some cases they can still vote, although it might be on a federal-only or provisional ballot. I wonder how many more people who wanted to vote weren't aware of the deadline until it was too late?
I'm more convinced than ever that we need election-day registration. In every election uncounted numbers of people are denied the right to vote because of needless deadlines, and that's disgraceful. In a way, I'm glad John McCain brought up ACORN because it made more people aware of how the bogeyman of voter fraud is used as a voter suppression tactic.
People fraudulently voting multiple times isn't a real-world problem in modern elections. Disenfranchising people with early registration deadlines is.
I'll write about the new voting machines in another post.