"Steering" at the polling booth

[Teacher Terry]

I wish there was one ballot with the choices. I think different ballots are confusing.

[jp1]

I guess i also don’t understand your comment. Unless poll worker knows that candidate A is popular amongst a certain particular demographic of republicans and wants to steer that demographic elsewhere what benefit does the poll worker have in giving out democrat ballots to republicans? At the end of the day the republican primary is voted on entirely by republicans. Steering one, or 100, or 1000, to the democratic ballot isnt likely to change the republican primary results. Unless the poll worker knows that all the old republicans like candidate A and all the young ones like candidate B or some other easily identifiable trend amongst republicans it seems like steering republicans to democratic ballots would favor all the republican candidates equally.

Considering how rarely poll workers work polls it seems far more likely that you had a random poll worker who made a mistake.

[jp1]

I wish there was one ballot with the choices. I think different ballots are confusing.

You should move to california. With the exception of president that’s what we have.

[Teacher Terry]

Everyone from California is moving here)

[LDAHL]

Personally, I don’t think our current system of open primaries serves us all that well. Look at the choices they produced in 2016. I’m not sure smoked filled rooms wouldn’t have produced better results.

[iris lilies]

I guess i also don’t understand your comment. Unless poll worker knows that candidate A is popular amongst a certain particular demographic of republicans and wants to steer that demographic elsewhere what benefit does the poll worker have in giving out democrat ballots to republicans? At the end of the day the republican primary is voted on entirely by republicans. Steering one, or 100, or 1000, to the democratic ballot isnt likely to change the republican primary results. Unless the poll worker knows that all the old republicans like candidate A and all the young ones like candidate B or some other easily identifiable trend amongst republicans it seems like steering republicans to democratic ballots would favor all the republican candidates equally.

Considering how rarely poll workers work polls it seems far more likely that you had a random poll worker who made a mistake.

Your logic and your facts are wrong.

First of all, my state is an open primary state, so “ the Republican primary is voted on entirely by Republicans” is not a true statement since anyone of any political affiliation can infiltrate the Republicans. And I am fine with this actually, I just want these infiltrators to do it consciously.

Secondly, There is NEVER a downside for the steering lying unethical poll workers who are, of course Democrats, to hand out Democratic ballots. Edited to add: never a downside for THEM.

The more ballots cast on the Democratic side, the more advantages that party earns under state election laws. I cannot remember the complex formula our state uses for handing out perks, but if I run across that info later I will post it. Third party candidates come into these primaries at a severe handcap due to these laws and it is made worse by steering at rhe ballot box.

Thirdly, OF COURSE it freekin matters in the end, a few votes OFTEN determine an election. You sound as though you are talking only about a Presidential election and only two parties count. In reality, hundreds of elections across the country are affected by a handful of votes. We have one from yesterday where a candidate lost by 4 votes and there was irregularity at the polling place that may well have flipped that election, somethng as simplei as the polling place opening an hour late.

When you say “it seems far more likely that you had a random poll worker who made a mistake” I say, well, sorta. Certainly that poll worker wasnt targeting me personally, but she was tagging each voter throughout the day with her lazy assumption that everyone wants a Democratic ballot. A few of those voters would have to challenge her on it, and some people are just not brave/sophisticated/mature/knowledgeable enough to do that.

[JaneV2.0]

Handing out an inappropriate ballot would seem like a minor infraction next to gerrymandering, voter suppression, voting machine hacking, and other common malfeasance.

[Teacher Terry]

Here our primaries are closed which I don’t think is right. I don’t vote straight democrat and my husband doesn’t vote straight republican. People need to be able to vote for the person that they think is best.

[iris lilies]

Handing out an inappropriate ballot would seem like a minor infraction next to gerrymandering, voter suppression, voting machine hacking, and other common malfeasance.

One ballot IS minor. Multiply it by the 200+ votes at that precinct. Then multiply by hundreds of precincts in my city. It is the slow erosion of an honest election. When each Democratic worker does this for their party, they are, well, doing it for their party, doing it for their team.
Every bit Helps.

This IS a form of voter supression.

[Teacher Terry]

Republicans are not going to vote democrat because they were handed the wrong ballot. They are going to ask for the correct ballot.