Okay, I have voiced my concerns about the fact that downstate NY – NYC and the surrounding counties – have six more hours than upstate NY to vote.  This may have been the way it has always been but that does not make it any less wrong.

Now, the story about my mother and step-father’s early voting in California.  My mother and step-father normally work the elections.  They are trained election supervisors or whatever the state of California calls those people.  They declined to work this year.  They did not want to spend the amount of time it will undoubtedly take to count all those paper ballots.  California, until this election, used touch screen computers for voting in most areas.  Not all areas used these.  It was determined that they were too easily hackable so back to paper ballots.  Those are foul-proof, right?

So, after deciding they were not going to work the primary or general election, they requested what I call absentee ballots but they call early voting.  The first mailing they received did have the proper ballots in it.  The ballots were ripped in half when removed from the envelope.  They called their board of elections.  No need to return the ripped ballot.  We will send you a second.  That, to me, is more hackable than a computerized voting system.

Now, the next issue.  I do not understand but I believe that the two of them are registered as undetermined.  They are not registered as independents, nor are they republicans or democrats.  I am not even sure New York State has such a designation, hence my inability to know what it is called.  They did not receive the ballot for the party they can vote in.  By the time they got it, it was too late to request an additional ballot.  They called.  Everything that could be sent was.  Well, not according to Mom.