In 2012, an amazing 56% of all votes cast in Mecklenburg County were cast during early voting. No proof of ID was required, and the law requiring ID for 2016 was thrown out by Federal judges.
So how does it work, and what are the protections against fraud?
Early voting starts October 20th. Mecklenburg County has a population a little over 1 million people, 800,000 of whom live in Charlotte.
For the first week, 10 polling locations are open 8AM-7PM, with hours on Saturday and Sunday. For the next 10 days, 22 polling places are open.
At 1 PM on Saturday, November 5th, Early Voting ends.
In 2012, 251,003 people voted Early (out of 448,500 total), plus an additional 29,126 absentee ballots. The final day, 20,800 people voted, meaning about 945 people per voting location, or about 80 people per hour per polling location.
Regular voting was at 195 precincts or about 1,000 people per precinct, so the final day of early voting will have roughly the same quantity of voters.
When Republicans swept into power in the state government, they tried to impose the racist voter ID requirement, along with the racist prohibition on straight ticket voting (which requires you to be able to read names) – the latter was challenged in the courts but not overturned, so for those voters going from precinct to precinct to vote 50 times, it will be more time consuming.
Given my stamina issues, I will try to vote early. How early? – not sure. Who to vote for? No clue. I’m pretty sure I won’t be voting for Senator Burr, the incumbent Republican Senator – he has been bombarding me online with messages about how he will get more money to the state for military spending to go kick ISIS butt, about the worst thing you could pitch. Buried in the mountain of Podesta emails with Hillary is the direct statement that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the ones funding ISIS. Shocking, I know.
I have made up my mind and not voting. As sad as this is to admit, I really don’t care anymore. The whole thing is rigged. I even registered as a Democrat, although I am really a right-wing nut, as my better half refers to me. I just did it thru the Hillary’s website and now I am bombarded (literally) with 4-5 phone calls/day and innumerable amount of emails daily (I am talking large amounts.) The reason they want me? I speak Spanish, and I can help those “new citizens” in Bridgeville. Yesterday morning on the last caller I told him I was not happy with Hillary’s double standard and he was quite upset and said: “Whatever!” and hung up. I thought I was finally free, but this morning I got my first phone call of the day as well as four emails. Oh the humanity!
You’re a glutton for punishment
My postal mail is filling up with the usual tree wasting stuff. Since I voted for Bernie in the primary, my mail has a bit more Democratic Party content
Indeed. The odd situation is that I block one and three more pop-up. Unfortunately, I used my real email and not the fake one in Juno, and can only block by email address only, so I get emails from Bubba, Billy-Bob, Zeke, Betty Jo, and Bobby Jean. Lucky for me this will only last till the first week of November.
A little tip from the FindanISP days – professional emailers embed beacons in emails that show if an email has been opened and how soon after it was sent. Depending on how you read the email, you can reduce the issue by telling the software not to automatically load images. Just previewing the email can inform the sender that the email is active and you do open emails and how active you are. Despite my general paranoia about Google, I have found gmail to work well – just expect that right wing emails will wind up in the spam folder 😉
Whatever you did to try to update your email address bounced from your Internet Provider
Three hour lines out at the University early voting location
http://wfae.org/post/first-day-early-voting-brings-long-lines-charlotte