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I was a democrat for all of 5 minutes today. I was exit polled by Fox News and objected when they claimed I was a stereotypical NH swing voter. I countered by saying there isn't much of a reason to keep party affiliation, and just because I voted in the R 2012 primary doesn't mean I would have voted R in the general.
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Feb 9, 2016 16:25
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 02:55 |
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turevidar posted:Today was my first time voting in NH and I forgot to undo my affiliation afterwards. A classic mistake. Remember to go to town hall at some point to fix it. That's the only way.
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Feb 9, 2016 18:16
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fishmech posted:Because it's not even 1 PM and the vast majority of NH people ain't voted yet. The three areas tat vote at midnight aren't representative of when everyone else votes in the state. 75% of Merrimack is in traffic to park to vote. There's plenty of parking and no lines inside, just someone incompetently directing traffic in the parking lot causing thousands of people to sit for about an hour to get to the polls. Already reports locally of people giving up.
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Feb 9, 2016 18:52
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Hey guys, I am writing a megapost on the Merrimack clusterfuck if anyone is interested. I am almost done. The helicopters have finally stopped hovering.
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Feb 10, 2016 02:38
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Polls close at 7/8PM ET.... yeah, right. Here's what I know about Merrimack from being a resident for 6 years, and following the discussion in a local Facebook group both leading up to and during the polling today. Let me tell you about Merrimack. Not long ago, we had three polling locations across the town. Running three polling locations costs money, and if there's one thing Merrimack hates, it's spending money on anything. I am not 100% certain on all these details, but this is the consensus gathered from Facebook posts in our local group, some being from the election moderator. I want to start by saying I give a lot of credit to the people who run the elections here, because they get poo poo on no matter what they do. Merrimack used to have three locations. During times of heavy turnout, these locations couldn't handle the traffic (auto or foot). There was only once place in town that can handle the amount of traffic coming through. After complaints about poor setups for polling, the town condensed to the one location in 2012, becoming the single largest polling location in the country. We have since been dethroned by Portland, ME. In 2012, voting was a clusterfuck. There was traffic, and there were lines. People complained, but one location is easier to solve problems at than three. Looking back at 2012 given what happened today, the traffic wasn't that bad, but the voting lines were far worse. The saving grace of the auto traffic was that it made the voting lines short! About a month ago, the traffic plan for today was circulated. Entry was through two streets: McElwain (the main entrance), and Robinson (the entrance few used). I was able to use Robinson to get in at about 9:30 AM in just a few minutes of traffic. Exit from the polls would be by O'Gara, using both lanes. It turns out the exit traffic didn't matter! Merrimack lacks a downtown, so everything is very spread out, mostly along the Daniel Webster Highway (US Rt 3), running parallel to the Everett Turnpike. The entry into the polls (McElwain) is off another important route in the town: Baboosic Lake Road. This road is a major road connecting large swaths of residential to the DW Highway, and importantly, it is one of only a few points to cross over or under the Everett Turnpike. This means you have three sources of traffic funneling into these entrances. Compounding this, the exit traffic was also onto Baboosic Lake Road, with most traffic heading to the DW Highway, meaning you had a stretch from exit to entrance that nearly every vehicle needs to pass through. So, that's the explanation for the typical traffic clusterfuck, a la 2012. You've got a lot of people, and overlapping paths, and all funneling into one route, and one parking lot. This brings us to the source of all this god damned traffic today: The parking lot. What I mentioned earlier about all the traffic flowing through one road segment. That is true of the entire one way stretch past the high school, but with the advantage of being one way. All bets were off at the parking lot. You have everyone coming into the parking lot, and everyone leaving, and there just aren't enough routes through to alleviate the choke point. In the morning, when I voted, the parking lot was nearly empty, and there was one person directing traffic. When I returned with my wife at 7:30, the parking lot was more full, but still had room. There was, at that point, a whole team of people directing traffic down different lanes, etc. It turns out that letting everyone find their own way results in better load balancing than one guy trying to direct traffic. There is lots of talk locally (and it has been going on all day) about things we can do as a town to solve the traffic problem. My understanding is that there isn't money in the town budget to run the 5 or so wards to distribute the load enough to work in the smaller locations spread around the town, so the one location is what we'll have then, too (unless something major changes, which I suppose it could because of today's issues). The other part of that is a lack of manpower to run 5 locations. Merrimack as a town talks a lot about politics, but does not follow through (i.e. lots of complaining about how things are run, but no one every opposing incumbents locally), so not so many people willing to help, but lots willing to complain. No one outside of Merrimack and the surrounding towns will care about this clusterfuck in a week, and no one will care about the inevitable clusterfuck in November.
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Feb 10, 2016 02:55
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cheesetriangles posted:Should hold the polls at the Merrimack outlets. If we're doing that, we might as well have drive-through polling. It's New Hampshire and the primaries are in winter proper, and the general is in pseudo-winter. Why they built an outdoor mall here, I have no idea.
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Feb 10, 2016 03:05
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cheesetriangles posted:Why is the food court there so loving dire? I know what these words are, but I have no idea what you are asking.
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Feb 10, 2016 03:08
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doomisland posted:Merrimack should hold their polling station at the Budweiser brewery Nothing could go wrong with this. And if things go wrong, we can storm the warehouse and not care about how wrong things have gone. The police would direct exiting traffic by pulling everyone over for DWI.
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Feb 10, 2016 03:13
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I was off by one. Vermin actually came in 4th. 241 votes with 89% of precincts reporting. Good lord! After super Tuesday, the entire world will have voted for him.
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Feb 10, 2016 07:49
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Phlegmish posted:Now let me tell you about a place called Seabrook, New Hampshire...they're Trump loyalists almost to a man. My father in law is in Seabrook and supported Trump because he speaks his mind.
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Feb 10, 2016 20:42
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 02:55 |
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Also, I'm guessing the number one reason for party registered voters in NH is that once you forget or neglect to unaffiliated once, you now need to go to Town Hall to update your registration, and most people are lazy. My coworker was registered R from 2012 when he neglected to unaffiliate and forgot to switch before the deadline. My wife is now registered D because after the traffic to get in, she just wanted to go home rather than wait in the three person line to unaffiliate. I don't know of anyone maintaining party affiliation. Maybe my step-mother? She was somewhat involved in the Democratic party in 2012 with my step-sister who was working for Obama's reelection campaign. There really just isn't a benefit to it, and it would be much easier if we just switched to full open primary.
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Feb 10, 2016 20:47
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