Voted at the church on Morganford and Chippewa (10th ward) 1 Gambaro person 2 smith people. The Gambaro kid had the green “sample ballot” that said “10 Ward Regular Democratic Party” with a paid for Dario Gambaro for senate at the bottom.

Voted at Mason School in Clifton Heights 6:40am. Two smith, one gambaro, one boykins working the front. Signs for different candidates as far as the eye can see.

Poll workers said light turnout even though Mason usually gets alot of seniors voting very early- not the best sign. Poll workers did a good job of getting me in and out and on my way

Good luck to all of the canididates

Just voted at Mann School. I think I was 23 for my precinct.

Republican election judge gave me a Republican ballot for the electronic machine though I said, "Democrat" three times. I almost shrieked when I saw I had the choice of Talent or some other stooge. Mistake or conspiracy? ;-)

15th ward, Fanning School. signs for everyone except El-Amin. poll workers for gambaro 1, 15th ward open smith 3, 15th Ward committee people 2 for Amber, and 2 recallers.

I wonder what the effectiveness of poll workers and sample ballots are anymore.

10th ward, Shaw School, but won't vote until after work.

Saw Daly, McMillan and Carnahan signs this morning outside a FORMER polling place, St. Louis Senior Center on Arsenal.

A woman on the Soulard bus said judges at her polling place told her to come back later because they only had the A-G list and wouldn't get the remaining lists until later in the day. But fortunately for our BOE's reputation, this was in Maplewood, not the City.

DISCRIMINATION AGAIN LOWER LETTERED PEOPLE!!!! WHERE IS REV. SHARPTON WHEN YOU NEED HIM!?!??!?

(Sorry for the caps, but it helped with the joke.)

16th Ward. St Mark's. Inside: only two touch screen machines and one optical scanner for about 2K registered voters, and one of the touchscreens broke while I was there.

Outside: Two people each for Smith and Gambaro, one for Frisella, one for Boykins.

Unless you are disabled, use the optical scan ballots. They are faster and even if the machine breaks down, it doesn't matter. Seriously, I know the gadgets are cool, but you can handle an almost unlimited number of optical scan ballots compared to the machines.

Voted at Hamilton School in Skinker-DeBaliviere around 7:45. Only workers I saw were from "Team El Amin."

Strangely, saw lots of signs for T.D. El Amin for state Rep in the 57th district. My polling place is in the 64th district.

Did hear from others there about getting Republican ballots instead of Democratic ones.

St. Raphaels (12th ward, 7th precinct)--one Jeff Smith worker; one Gambaro; Murphy's worker with Boykins on ballot. Fewer than 20 voters at 10:15am

25th Ward (not in the 4th district): the only person outside was a friend from the 25th ward democratic committee handing out our sample ballots. I was the youngest person inside by at least 20 years, including both voters and those working the polls. There was a line of four ahead of me, which moved very slowly, in part to those in the line, and in part to the judge giving instructions to those using the two electronic voting machines. While I wasn't given an option to cast a scanable ballot, I did remark to that judge, whom I know from my neighborhood association, that the seniors voting would likely prefer a paper ballot. She had a differing opinion. Once I reached the machine, it took me about two minutes to cast my selections. Two machines do not cut it. We obviously need more machines, or to direct people to use the scanable ballots. Also, the sense of privacy is gone with the new machines--no curtain and the judge looking over your shoulder "assisting you". We're stumbling in these baby steps to improve the voting system.

I got a vote no in november card on the stem cell issue. It had a lot of misinformation on it.

Old rule of thumb used to be anywhere from 1 to 5 percent of the vote could be swayed by poll workers. I have no idea where that comes from. If politicians were smart, they'd ban pollworkers up to 200 ft which would virtually eliminate the need for poll workers.

Voted in Jeff Co, after running the gauntlet through all the candidate support outside. Must of been about 15 of them. I voted at 6:45am and was the 42nd voter.

Saw lots of campaign signs on the drive to the polling place. Must have counted at least 10 for Loudon for Auditor.

Didn't see any innacurate information on the vote No on the cloning amendment flyer.

Voted in U City. Had to vote affadavit because the licensing office that 'registered' me to vote actually did not.

Do not trust the AAA license office on Lindell and Vandeventer (by SLU)

there are appearantly some problems with voting here in jefferson county, specifically in the olympian village area. Word is theres already talk of legal action against the county clerk.

Voted in Unic. North County (near Florissant) 48th voter at 10 (its a fairly small polling place) all the State Reps had signs and poll workers (Tony George [North COunty Labor], Ingrid Owens, and Steve Webb) there was also a guy from the State Party checking regular Dems and some nut handing out lit about stem cell research being bad (I wanted to say: "listen buddy my Grandfather has Parkinson's so step back..." but I was civil)

10th ward, 1st precinct, voted around noon at Shaw. Lines of one or two people at my and 2nd pct table. I think the person ahead of me needed a provisional ballot or something special, it took a while and there was a colored form filled out. Everyone seemed cool. Republican judge was very nice and gave me my dem ballot. I was 129th optical scan ballot. Nobody watching over anyone's shoulder for either type of voting.

Poll workers--got handed Jeff Smith's glossy "telling it to you straight" mailer by a smiling young woman, two pieces of Boykins lit and Boykins sample ballot (for 17th ward), and a "10th ward regular" sample ballot from Gambaro. Saw two sample ballot door hangers from Gambaro on my walk to the poll.

Can anyone clear something up for me? I thought there was no 10th ward organization...what is "10th ward regular"? Is that just the committeepeople of the ward? I just moved to this ward and feel a little ignorant. :(

Voted very early this morning in the 25th ward.

First I was given a card for the touchscreen machine that was for a republican ballot. I know I distinctly asked for a democrat ballot. It took two people to figure out how to get the bad card out of the machine.

Got a new card, put it in the slot and, yes, it was democrat ballot. I set about my business voting until I got to the State Rep race. Tom Villa is my state rep yet the ballot I was working on offered me a selection of Oxford or Rice. I again called over the poll worker and had to convince her that it was the incorrect ballot. She didn't believe me at first.

They were apologetic after deciding that I did indeed know my state rep. Finally I got the correct ballot. My concern is that someone else may not have caught the error and cast a ballot for the wrong race. Would that have been caught? Would the whole ballot have been tossed out? Right now I have more questions than answers.

I also, as Travis pointed out, dislike the lack of privacy at the new machines. Why can't they still put some sort of curtain around them? I don't like having a poll worker over my shoulder.

All and all, I'm not sold on this system as I experienced it today. I may go back to the optical scanner I used in the last election. It just seems a better choice overall.

I worked the polls this morning for a friend running in the county and got some feed back about the voting machines.
1. "People waiting to vote could hear me ask for my ballot and therefore knew which one I requested, I thought that was my secret."
2. "People standing close and waiting to vote can see who I voted for!"
3."If I wanted to write my own name in for something my chosen party had nobody listed, could I?"
4."I knew the Election Workers gave me the wrong ballot and said so. They asked me how I could be sure and I told them my name should be on the ballot and it wasn't, that's when then agreed to correct it."
5. "It took me longer to vote this way than the old punch card way."
Well #4 upsets me the most. But turnout has been light; for instance the Sunset Hills City Hall location had about 87 voters by 11:30AM. My polling place, Kirkwood Community Center had 151 by 12:15PM.
Good news was all the various candidates were very nice to each other. That's unusal these days.

I was working for Jeff Smith at the YMCA on Sublette. The reason the signs were up in the senior center on Arsenal was because the grounds manager at the Y pulled out all the signs that were on the parking on Sublette (the Y is a non-political organization, damnit!), so many workers put them over at the senior center because there is a large voter overlap there and it seemed the best use of signs.

I returned to my polling place after conducting some business this afternoon to hand-out fliers for a candidate I was supporting. The flow of voters were pretty steady throughout the afternoon, and I was kept company by my committeeman and committeewoman at different times, as they passed-out the ward's sample ballot. As the evening came, the queueing at the polls began to lengthen, which prompted me to wonder how we are going to handle the next big election cycle (2008) with only two machines handling the two precincts at my polling place. Even with punch ballots and four curtained voting booths, I am told, that the queueing was around the corner of the building.

Of course, the St. Louis Senior Center is a city-owned building, but that's interesting about the Y. Why did they agree to be a polling place, then, I wonder?

I'll blog about this later, but I was a Technical Specialist at Froebel Elementary -- Ward 20 Pcts 1 and 3. Of course, turnout was incredibly low. We maybe broke 5%. But even there, a short line formed for the two touch screen ("AccuVote TSX") machines about 5:30 PM. And that stupid printer on TSX #2 just kept jamming up!

Of course, I was the only poll worker under age 50. They were all very nice to me; most lived in the neighborhood / ward like me.

As a 50-something working at the polls for Jeff Smith next to a 60-something, Jeff has developed and has support from a broad coalition of people. He believes in representing ALL the citizens and that's why he won. Joyce