I just returned from trying to vote. I have to make this quick, since it took a lot longer than it was supposed to.
I arrived at 6:25. Polls open at 6:30. None of the machines were turned on. One of the poll workers was sitting on hold with the election headquarters. She told me that the technician never showed up yesterday, and wasn't there today. She eventually just hung up. The poll workers were frantically flipping through the Diebold manuals, trying to figure out how to get the machines up and running.
They started creating the voter cards before there were machines to vote with. There were 8 machines in 3 precincts at my polling place. By 6:40, 4 of them still weren't up. THe other 4 were supposedly up, but on at least 2 of them the printers didn't work. I don't know about the other 2. The gears that took the printer rolls up weren't turning, and when they did print they printed all the information on one line.
I ended up voting on one of the broken machines. If there is a recount, I just got disenfranchised, because there is no paper backup of my vote.
Say thanks to Ken Blackwell, Ohio Sec of State and candidate for Governor, for this mess.
Among other things, I'm waiting for the electorate to rise up. If they all had a primary voting day like my brother did today (link is to his blog), they just might.
Tracked: May 02, 15:32