And I'm still literally shaking. I arrived to early vote at the Delray Beach City Hall at 12:40 this afternoon. There were about 30 people in line in front of me. As it turned out those 30 people translated into an hour and a half wait. I was standing in line with this Haitian guy in front of me and we were joking and stuff at all of the confusion. There were forms laying around with no one to explain how to fill them out and people were disturbed about the long wait. It actually gave us both time to discuss some of the amendments and candidates on the ballot. We finally got to the front of the line and he went into the voting room first. That's where things started really going downhill fast.
While I waited, which was about another ten minutes I observed a gentleman standing behind all the voting officials with an "I Voted" sticker on and his cell phone open. He was recording data into his cell phone. Then, cell phone open he would walk over to the open computer screens with all the voter data displayed and record more data, then walk around the table to look at the info the Haitian man in front of me had written down on his registration form then back to his open cell phone to record more data. This happened to ALL of the people sitting at all four computers gathering info.
When I got in and sat down I immediately said "WHO IS THAT GUY AND WHY IS HE STANDING THERE LOGGING DATA INTO AN OPEN CELLPHONE." I said, "IS HE TAKING PICTURES?" I jumped up and read his nametag. He was a Republican Poll Watcher. He walked around the table and was doing the same thing to me I saw him doing to the Haitian guy. I grabbed up my forms and insisted he step away. A couple people in charge gave me a yellow form to submit a complaint. I was shaking but I recorded his name and what he was doing and said it really upset me.
Another person handed me the rules for poll watchers. It was 3 pages long. I just asked for them to show me where it says they can stand behind the poll workers and take personal information about the voter directly from the voter logs. They said that wasn't allowed. LOL. DUH! The guy had been in there god only knows how long doing that.
On the way out one of the supervisors stopped me in the hallway leaving in front of everyone waiting in line. I repeated what I put on my complaint and people's mouths dropped open. I went outside and immediately called the local Democratic Party headquarters. They gave me the number to report voter fraud. 1-877-868-3737. They suggested I call the police. Instead, while I was talking to the voter fraud number our Democratic Legislative candidate, Hava Holhauser walked up outside the polls and heard the whole conversation. She didn't wait until I was even off the phone to start calling around to get a Democratic poll watcher over there.
I also came home and called the Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor. They are supposed to be calling me back.
What in the world is going on? These Republicans have no shame and abide by no rules. They seem to push everything as far as they can and they appear to be getting away with it.
I'm still so upset. Geeesh. Anyway, that was my day of early voting. I hope yours goes better.