it for my reasons. I think you're supposed to be sick or out of town on business.

on election day. I think absentee votes have at least as good a chance of being counted as those on election day. Early voting is good too.

The one time I did it, though, I'd heard something to the effect that they only got counted in cases of a recount, or close election.

place where these problems occur. ask them for their names btw. and take this info to your local party/candidates offices.

from the entrance. If that's true, the requirement is too short a distance.

You have a moral imperative to pursue this further, in my opinion. Don't focus on the distance from the door, focus on their aggressive techniques. If other Dem voters are intimidated from voting, and in PA!, something must be done.

Provisional can be far iffier. Not sure where you live- in California you can register permanent absentee and you can track online to confirm they got it and that it was counted (it doesn't confirm how you voted but overall pretty cool.)

Part of why I feel a certain confidence that absentee ballots tend to be counted? Those voters trend older and more conservative. Not segments of the voting population most often targeted for voter suppression.

I voted absentee once, but was worried by rumors. One thing I heard was that they only count them if the vote is close.

Absentees do, and it's a good way to vote IMO. And it may be a bit silly but I like the idea of a paper ballot/trail.

EG if there are 2000 provisional and there is already a 5000 vote difference, they won't get counted. California, I believe verifies and counts them all.

I've been early voting since the early 2000s, in two different states, Kansas and now New Mexico. Both make it exceptionally easy.

As I'm learning, they discourage even absentee voting. They love making it inconvenient, I guess.

any chance of moving?

My first experience with advance voting was in 1980. I lived in Virginia at the time, and I was getting married in October, and would be honeymooning in Europe, over election day. At the time, voting early felt quite bizarre. But it also felt quite good to be able to cast our vote when we would be gone on election day.

I was an airline ticket agent at DCA. Washington National Airport from 1969 to 1979, and among the very interesting things about that career was how airline traffic was incredibly altered on an Election Day. Many of our regular passengers wanted to be able to vote, and since advanced or absentee ballots were almost impossible to obtain, people who might otherwise have travelled on Monday of that week, stayed home so as to be able to vote Tuesday morning. Or went home early Tuesday so as to be able to vote by the end of the day.

I noticed that pattern, and since I left the job in 1979, well before the modern era of advanced voting, didn't see much of a change. I know that some states, like Pennsylvania, have zero advance voting, which is sad, depressing, and unreasonable. Republicans are so absurdly fixated on "voter fraud" when the only fraud out there is what they do. In real life, there is almost no voter fraud (other than the occasional Republican who lives near a state border and thinks because he lives on one side of the state line and works on the other ought to be able to vote on both sides) so simply letting citizens show up at the polls and vote is the simplest solution possible.

Anyway, I do understand that moving may not be a practical solution. I hope you are able to vote, easily and freely, this November.

And heck, I'd be saying that even if this were a forum where you were declaring your intention to vote for the Donald.

what might be considered voter fraud if I want to avoid running the RW gauntlet to cast my vote. It really isn't practical for us to move at this point. But, to avoid commiting voter fraud while still avoiding what I consider unacceptable behavior by the Republican Pols in my district, I guess I could go visit my mom, which I consider a "duty" and which would take me "out of the municipality" on the day of the election.

I'm printing my absentee registration now!

Back in the day, what a voter needed to come up with to justify advance voting no doubt often resulted in a degree of "voter fraud".

What's nice about living in a state with good early voting is that some dumb excuse is simply not part of the early voting procedure. You simply show up and vote. Which is as it should be.

Do what you need to do, but do vote.

If it's any consolation, you've no doubt noticed that many of the voter ID nonsense has been turned over by federal judges, and I expect that will continue.

I honestly wonder how other countries manage their voter thing.

and some who manage it worse than we do. But, hey, shouldn't TheGreatestCountryInTheWorld (™) do it best?

It's Tuesday, 7a to 8p.
When I first heard about early voting I thought "what's that?!" It's like buying beer at the 7-11: we don't do that here.

It would be nice if your new Governor would push sensible early voting as a priority.

I do need to add Good Early Voting to my check-list of what is important to me the next time I relocate.

My mother had come to live with us and it was difficult to vote at the polling place because one of us had to be with her at all times. So we requested absentee ballots and have received them automatically ever since. It is very convenient especially if there is a long ballot with judges and constitutional amendments, etc. You can take your time and know you are not holding anyone else up. We try to research things in advance so we know how we want to vote.

One note of caution. Our absentee ballots come with a secrecy sleeve and instructions on how the ballot is to be handled. A signature on the outside is required with the date. Proper postage is required, too. It tells you in the instructions that if you don't do everything right, your ballot will not be counted, so we double check everything before mailing it back. You can go online to track it to make sure it was received. I think voting by mail is a great idea...no lines, no waiting!

If you catch somebody doing it take video and then call the authorities.

This is my polling place, showing the entrance.
The Rs set up their canopy right to the left at the bottom of the steps then stand in front of the steps, on both sides, but just off to the sides so they're technically not blocking the stops, but they are so aggressive.

I've spoken to some of the Dems there who say the ten feet is measured from the doors at the top of the steps, so the Rs are not breaking any rules.

Then Dems, on the other hand, put their canopy in the parking lot well back from the steps and only speak to people who approach them.

Maybe we need a happy medium from both sides.

...and then voters drop of their completed ballots in vote collection boxes like at the library or city hall etc. Why can;t all states be like that?

encourage even more of the wrong people to vote.

They always counted the absentee ballots. I watched them.

Is pretty good about that stuff. You have to walk past both, I smile at the R's and chat and take literature from the D's.
At the May primary the local D org. had a food drive at the voting place. They robo-called every registered D in the district. I brought a couple bags. By the time I voted around 5:30 they had a huge pile of donated food behind them as they passed out literature. Great idea.

You must know someone who would tell the Repuke electioneerers to F right off. They do the confrontation part, then you both go in and vote.

Also, you shouldn't take this lying down. There are probably other Dem voters who are intimidated at your polling location, and PA is a VERY important state. You should contact your local elections office and tell them you feel intimidated and harassed by these people, and it's preventing you from voting. If they don't take action, contact your state senator or (US) Representative.

The problem is, I can't just do it and move on. I feel all kinds of bad about it afterwards. I've got borderline high BP, and so I need to learn to calm down or avoid people who tend to make my blood boil.

My husband is a 6'4" long haired hippie type who looks intimidating, but who is far more calm and peaceful than me. He just smiles and takes their lit and discards it later, as most people seem to think I should as well. He doesn't feel intimidated in the least. But I do. So, he encourages me to vote absentee.

When I approached the guy manning the Dem booth, there was an elderly woman and her even more elderly mother who had come to him with the same complaint. He told us both that there is nothing that can be done because the Rs aren't breaking any rules.

When I did a bit of volunteer work for the Obama campaign, I spoke to some folks there as well, and they told me the same thing: nothing can be done.

Take video of their aggressive tactics, interview some Dems on video (like the elderly woman and her mother) who feel intimidated, edit it together, and send it to all your local news stations, maybe? If the local elections commission won't do anything, they might be shamed into it by the media.

I wish I'd thought to ask those women if I could film them. Even though maybe most people wouldn't find the R's tactics intimidating, I'm certainly not the only one who finds it aggressive, and that would have been a bit of proof.

I'll gladly ID my polling place for any budding Dem documentarian who wishes to stop by and see if they Rs are still up to their tricks this November.

Here's some data from the 2016 Primary. (Some people say the Dems are too far outnumbered to make it worth a real fight here.)

REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL: 3669
**********************************Votes Percent
REGISTERED VOTERS - DEMOCRATIC . . . . 1236 33.69
REGISTERED VOTERS - REPUBLICAN . . . . . 1865 50.83
REGISTERED VOTERS - NONPARTISAN . . . . . 568 15.48
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL. . . . . . . . 1557
BALLOTS CAST - DEMOCRATIC . . . . . . . . . . 563 36.16
BALLOTS CAST - REPUBLICAN . . . . . . . . . . .955 61.34
BALLOTS CAST - NONPARTISAN. . . . . . . . . .39 2.50
VOTER TURNOUT - TOTAL . . . . . . . 42.44
VOTER TURNOUT - DEMOCRATIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45.55
VOTER TURNOUT - REPUBLICAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.21
VOTER TURNOUT - NONPARTISAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.87

UNITED STATES PRESIDENT

********** (DEMOCRATIC) **********

HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . 334 59.86
BERNIE SANDERS. . . . . . . . . . . 214 38.35
ROQUE ROCKY DE LA FUENTE . . . . . . 1 .18
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.61


********** (REPUBLICAN) **********
UNITED STATES PRESIDENT

TED CRUZ. . . . . . . . . . . . 183 19.30
MARCO RUBIO. . . . . . . . . . . 7 .74
JEB BUSH. . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1.27
BEN CARSON . . . . . . . . . . . 6 .63
JOHN R KASICH . . . . . . . . . . 276 29.11
DONALD J TRUMP. . . . . . . . . . 463 48.84
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 .11

2016 and wth?

local races. A lot of that, as I understand it, having to do with PA having been Gerrymanderd to within an inch of its life. knowing that there are actually more votes for Ds than Rs in the state, the Rs have also been trying all kinds of voter restrictions and getting away with a lot of them. T

he last thing they want is for it to be easy to vote. At least not until they've completed their propaganda campaign to the point where more people are buying their BS than not.

I never even heard of it til I started following politics a lot more closely in 2008.

The Rs know there are more D leaning people in the state and you can't have them all voting, now, can you? Then the state house and senate might always be blue instead of the non-representative red it too often is.