Wed
Jan 23 2008
06:34 pm
Reminder to Knox County voters re. party primaries
By: R. Neal

Apparently there is still confusion about how Tennessee's "open primary" works.

"Open" means you can choose to vote in either the Democratic or the Republican primary. It does not mean you can pick and choose from column A and column B, and you don't get eggrolls, either.

In other words, if there's a Republican running in your commission district who you really want to vote for, you have to vote in the Republican primary. This means you can't vote in the Democratic presidential primary for a Democratic candidate. Conversely, if you want to vote for a Republican in the presidential primary, you will have to vote in the Republican primary and you won't be able to vote for any Democratic candidates in the local primaries.

So study the sample ballot and figure out ahead of time which primary you are going to vote in based on which candidates you feel most strongly about or where your vote is most needed or whoever gave you a half-pint on the way in or whatever.

Knox County Administrator of Elections Greg Mackay explains how it will work when you get to the polls. He also discusses it in this WBIR video interview.

Topics:
Bird_dog's picture

I wasn't clear on voting for delegates...

Submitted by Bird_dog on Wed, 2008/01/23 - 8:05pm.

The scrolling thing was a pain because there are 12 delegates to vote for - one at a time. Each vote sends the scrolling thing back to the top of the list. A slight move to the left erases your Presidential vote. I did that about 6 times before I figured out what was happening. I admit that I lost patience and just voted for delegates at random just to get on with it. I liked the old push buttons much better.

Rachel's picture

That's just in the

Submitted by Rachel on Wed, 2008/01/23 - 9:11pm.

That's just in the Republican primary, tho. Democrats don't vote for delegates, just directly for the candidate they prefer. The Democratic ballot is only one page.

Bird_dog's picture

interesting, thank you

Submitted by Bird_dog on Wed, 2008/01/23 - 10:30pm.

Rachel, thanks - I never knew that. I've voted in Texas and Louisiana and now TN and they are all so different.

bizgrrl's picture

Each vote sends the

Submitted by bizgrrl on Thu, 2008/01/24 - 6:48am.

Each vote sends the scrolling thing back to the top of the list. A slight move to the left erases your Presidential vote.

Based on this description, it seems there should be some concern regarding voting complexities and votes getting recorded. I certainly hope the many people who are not so familiar with "computer" voting, e.g. scrolling, "mouse" wheels, icon buttons, etc. don't get so frustrated they give up or don't accidentally erase their Presidential vote.

I know the volunteers do a great job. Let's just hope they keep up the good work to ensure all voting citizens get through this election successfully.

Is there any way to check the numbers daily to see if there are any inconsistencies? For example, are the majority of the Presidential votes getting recorded? Of course, it sounds like the Democrat ballot is pretty simple, so why should I care?

Carole Borges's picture

Voting was a bit tricky

Submitted by Carole Borges on Thu, 2008/01/24 - 7:55am.

I almost messed up my vote yesterday. When I tried to go back and change something, I had inadvertently moved the scroll up to another candidates name (or it did it automatically?). If I hadn't noticed it, I could have voted for anyone! The machine does tell you your choice, so you can catch a mistake that way, but it is before you cast your ballot. I was wishing they had a printout affirming who you had actually voted for AFTER you'd cast you ballot---not before. I also had trouble getting the screen up that had the school board candidate. I had to get an examiner to do it after I'd failed three times.

After my experience yesterday, I feel sure mistakes are being made with this system, and I consider myself computer literate! I bet a lot of people are too embarassed to go find an explainer again if they had problems.

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