by Jack Lee
If my polling station (Hooker Oak in Chico) is anything like the other polling places around this city and state we are about to have a record voter turnout. It was expected that 45% of us would not bother to vote this year, but I think that must be wrong. We had long lines out the auditorium and into the church parking lot. The frantic poll workers said they had never seen anything like it! They were stunned at the massive turnout and feeling the effects of a long day that began at 6 a.m.
They warned me in the hopes I would pass it along… that if people show up one minute after 8 p.m. they will be locked out and won’t get to vote. Those who are in line when the doors are closed will still be allowed to cast a ballot.
What irks me are the people who wait until they are in the voting booth to read their ballot. They are in there forever! I’m sure that was happening tonight because I voted in less than 3 minutes and a guy in front of me was the same booth for almost 20 minutes. I felt like saying, if you take any longer you can vote on the 2012 ballot too!
Unfortunately for me, there were only two electronic voting machines and the rest were paper ballots and I picked the machine before I realized the log jam. Oh well, at least I won’t have a hanging chad.
Note: It’s still an hour from the poll closing, but I see the early returns show GOP victories in the south are crushing democrats by a 2 to 1 margin. I hope it continues like this and if it does the Republicans will soon retake the House. This is amazing.
I mailed my ballot in a couple of weeks ago, but next year Ill drop it off at any polling place. Like the mail in ballot, but heard there could be problems with mailing them early.
Today I spent a couple of hours at the Republican head quarts setting up for tonights celebration. While there Ill bet twelve people came in wanting to know where they could drop their ballots off. Another handful came in wanting to know where they were supposed to vote and even more called in wanting to know about the propositions and judges. It was a crazy day there for sure.
Tonight there was a nice large turn out and most of the candidates were there for the whole night or stopped by. Doug LaMalfa gave a very heartfelt talk and Dan Logue said the wave that swept across the US and stopped at the Sierras is our goal for the next election.
As of now it looks like Bob, Bob and Mark are our new city council members and hopefully will be when I get up tomorrow. Sorry Quentin, better luck next time.
Great job everyone. We didn’t win them all, but we sure did win some good ones.
Can we open those polling places up again? Jerry Brown really?
I feel you pain.
KNVN reporter last night said she talked to the voter registration office in Oroville during the afternoon, said they were getting over 70% turn out.
Wonder what the final figure is.
Alas, statewide, only seven of the seventeen million registered voters bothered to exert themselves.
Seemingly, they know something the rest of us are unwilling to face.