Heavier than expected turnout and dried-up gel pens are causing problems in some Central New York polling places for Tuesday's primary. Despite printing 30 percent more ballots than used for primaries in 2007 -- "a good-sized primary," said Elections Commissioner Helen Kiggins -- polling places are running short. In addition, Kiggins said, more voters than expected are spoiling their...
A voter completes her ballot at the East Syracuse Free Library on Primary Day. Heavier than expected turnout and dried-up gel pens are causing problems in some Central New York polling places for Tuesday's primary. Despite printing 30 percent more ballots than used for primaries in 2007 -- "a good-sized primary," said Elections Commissioner Helen Kiggins -- polling places are running short.
In addition, Kiggins said, more voters than expected are spoiling their first ballot and asking for a replacement. So Board of Elections staff spent their day printing and delivering ballots and buying a delivering gel pens to polling places in Onondaga County.
That wasn't the experience that syracuse.com user chittchatt had, who said:
"I just returned home from voting and to tell the truth, I was very pleasantly surprised at how easy the whole process is! At the line of little private stalls where you fill out the ballot, you can take your time and not feel rushed by having a line behind you while you're in the voting booth. The ballot is easy to do, just like doing those "fill-in-the-bubble" test forms that many of us used in school. When you're done, you're given a folder to keep your ballot private while you walk the few steps to the machine. Just feed the completed ballot into the machine, wait a few seconds for the screen to tell you if it went through correctly, and you're done! The stalls and the machine are also low enough for people in wheelchairs to use them with minimal problems."
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