Did You Get to Vote Today??? (Maricopa: closing, best, areas)

[gbpakrfan]

I guess it depends on where you live. Here in Pinal County, there was NO line. None. Zip.

We walked in, showed our IDs, grabbed a ballot and walked out three minutes later.

[DetroitN8V]

Why didn't people just vote by mail?

[AksarbeN]

The lines where long and nowhere to park because the lots full, those who waited for a parking spot to open up couldn’t get into the line by 7PM and thus couldn’t vote. I was happy to vote by mail early.

[adriver]

Originally Posted by gbpakrfan

I guess it depends on where you live. Here in Pinal County, there was NO line. None. Zip.

We walked in, showed our IDs, grabbed a ballot and walked out three minutes later.

didn't realize the op should have specified Maricopa county.

[Ztonyg]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Rubio got about 14% of the vote. He beat Kasich.

That's due to the mail-in votes.

[observer53]

Originally Posted by DetroitN8V

Why didn't people just vote by mail?

There are lots of reasons for that. Always will be. Some people still prefer to go to the polls on the day. And that is their right.


But for county officials to assume that the very high mail in vote for this election must mean that there would be fewer people showing up on election day (and not that there was high interest in this election and so MORE would show up to vote) was either just incredibly stupid or, if you look at the map of where the polling places were and were not, something else entirely. (or, for that matter, a good bit of both).

[ScottsdaleMark]

People have a right to vote in person. That's how it's been done for centuries and I don't think it's fair to blame that a poorly-run system being overwhelmed on voters showing up to vote. That said, clearly it IS wise to get your ballot by mail because incompetence or malfeasance seem to be somewhat likely in any given election.

Given this is a primary, there's no real reason for them to intentionally A) not have enough polling places and B) have a MUCH higher ratio of residents to polling places in suburban areas, than in urban areas. But they did. I read that downtown it was over 100K residents per polling place, whereas in outlying areas of the county it was just a few thousand people per polling place nearby. If it was a general election and this happened, I would assume it was on purpose and was the establishment trying to affect how many people are able to vote. That sort of thing happens across the country. In this case, it seems to be just incompetence, because in a primary there doesn't seem to be any clear benefit to the county making it very difficult for people to vote.

I never fill out my ballot until the day-of, because I figure, what if someone drops out of the race...has a last-minute negative revelation about them...or something else happens last minute that changes how I want to vote on something. I do get my ballot in the mail, but I drop it off at the polling place because I do not want to vote until the last day or two in case of these things happening. Fortunately you do not have to wait in line to drop off your ballot and I checked online using the line JG provided earlier and my ballot has indeed been counted as of this time.

[Magnum Mike]

Originally Posted by ScottsdaleMark

People have a right to vote in person. That's how it's been done for centuries and I don't think it's fair to blame that a poorly-run system being overwhelmed on voters showing up to vote. That said, clearly it IS wise to get your ballot by mail because incompetence or malfeasance seem to be somewhat likely in any given election.

Given this is a primary, there's no real reason for them to intentionally A) not have enough polling places and B) have a MUCH higher ratio of residents to polling places in suburban areas, than in urban areas. But they did. I read that downtown it was over 100K residents per polling place, whereas in outlying areas of the county it was just a few thousand people per polling place nearby. If it was a general election and this happened, I would assume it was on purpose and was the establishment trying to affect how many people are able to vote. That sort of thing happens across the country. In this case, it seems to be just incompetence, because in a primary there doesn't seem to be any clear benefit to the county making it very difficult for people to vote.

I never fill out my ballot until the day-of, because I figure, what if someone drops out of the race...has a last-minute negative revelation about them...or something else happens last minute that changes how I want to vote on something. I do get my ballot in the mail, but I drop it off at the polling place because I do not want to vote until the last day or two in case of these things happening. Fortunately you do not have to wait in line to drop off your ballot and I checked online using the line JG provided earlier and my ballot has indeed been counted as of this time.

That's why I also waited until Tuesday because I didn't want to cast votes for a candidate that's no longer running.

[cjseliga]

If they want everybody to vote by mail, they should just have a state wide referendum asking people if they want to make vote-by-mail the only option to vote, like they did in Oregon back in the late 90's.

[sandy6879]

Originally Posted by DetroitN8V

Why didn't people just vote by mail?

For some reason, my ballot never showed up in the mail this time. It has every other election. That's another issue that's being reported right now. Not surprised, but irritating either way.