On Sun, 12 Nov 2000, Erik Reuter wrote:
> I voted in Cook county. The Presidential page of the ballot was MUCH
> clearer than Palm Beach county. But Cook county has an insane number
> of judges on the ballot (40 or 50, I think) and we have to vote yes or
> no (approval or disapproval) for each judge. This part was on a
> "butterfly" ballot, and while the choices were clear if you looked
> carefully, the sheer number of votes required on the butterfly part
> could lead to errors due to voter fatigue. During voting, I had to
> take a 30 second break and rub my eyes before I could finish voting
> for the judges.
Dang. I had fewer than 20 judges on mine, just running for the office,
and most of them were running unopposed. (That took some of the cheer out
of voting FOR Billy Ray Stubblefield, since there was no one to be voting
AGAINST for that judgeship....)
In fact, almost half the positions on my ballot were for judges running
without opposition. On the legislative stuff, at least the Libertarians
were putting someone up against whoever was incumbent.
I've voted with 3 different methods; the punch card method was in use in
Texas when I first voted here, but they moved to the kind of ballot where
you mark the oval with a #2 pencil next to the name sometime in the early
1990s. (I think those are a more efficient way to go than the punch
cards, but there's gotta be a better way.) I can't remember what it was
my first election, in New Hampshire, but I think it may have been marking
a paper ballot with Xs.
Julia
