I VOTED EARLY

I voted early! I suspected the weekends would be busy so I waited until Monday to do it. The rain probably discouraged some people to procrastinate. It was quick, no waiting at all. I walked straight in, some staff member shouted at someone at the door that no photography allowed at the entrance, I proceeded to the check-in desk.

I recall when I worked on Election Day some years ago, the workers were assigned these booklets that let us look up voter's Districts, based on that the staff, at the desk for the Districts, would find the voters' documents for them to sign. It was a two-step process.  We had to use a straight edge to better find the info.  One colleague had the great idea of writing certain oft-needed info on a separate piece of paper and that helped sped things along. Today, the workers had some tablet device that can scan the barcodes on the booklet I received in the mail, which I brought with me. Signed my name with a stylus and off I went with a ballot to the filling station, filled in the many bubbles needed, then finally walked over to the scanning station. The scanner doesn't do duplex so you have to scan one side then flip the ballot over and scan again. Let's hope wherever those scanned data go it's securely protected against tampering!

Vote early if you can. All the info is actually in the voter's booklet you already received in the mail. Where to go if you want to vote early, the hours the place is open (some day it opens early, others it closes late, to accommodate different people's schedule), plus the usual info related to Election Day, it's all there.  I found things via the 311 app on my iPhone but it wasn't necessary. Bring the booklet with you, open it to the page with the barcodes, save everyone's time.  I was lucky to walk right in but by the time I left, a queue was already spilling out of the building.