Just got back from voting, after a lot of confusion on where to vote. First, some quick background for this story:

Austin proper sits in two counties. Travis county is where most of the city is, and also the size of the city results in it occupying most of the county. Williamson county includes a small piece of Austin, several smaller towns that are part of the general Austin area, plus lots of sparsely populated areas. Travis county tends to lean Democratic, and Williamson Republican.

I live in Williamson, and went to vote at my local polling place, a fellowship in a warehouse building. Out front in the grass area facing the street were many political signs for Republicans running for various offices. Going inside revealed 4 people running checkin, 16 places to fill out the paper ballot, and one electronic voting machine. The paper ballots were read by an optical scanner machine, and no method to cover the ballot when putting it into the machine was provided. There was usually a guy standing right near the machine to assist people, and votes could clearly be seen by him.

Once I got to the registration desk, I handed over ID to allow them to search for my name. It wasn't in their book, nor their computer, and they didn't have an explanation. During the primaries, the same issue came up, and it seems my voter registration was never processed when I moved from Travis county to Williamson. The people at the desk recommended I try the old location once more. As I headed out to my car, someone had parked outside and was putting up a few signs for some local Democrats, along with an Obama sign.

So, I drove 10 miles to my old polling place in Travis county, a high school that was a few blocks from where I used to live. The only signs out front were "Vote Here" signs. I got inside, found 4 people here as well working checkin, and 4 electronic voting machines. They tried to look up my name, and didn't find it in the books. The lady at the registration desk then called the election judge over, and she called the county to check my status. I was marked inactive after the primaries, due to signing a statement about moving and reregistering in the new county. The election judge provided me the phone number to the Williamson county voting office. Upon leaving, one of the poll workers told a young man coming in with a promotional pamphlet for some local Democrat that he had to throw it away. When asked where he got it, it was revealed someone was standing outside handing them out, and poll workers went outside to ask them to leave. The people handing out the pamphlets were also putting up signs, that they took down before driving off.

I called the Williamson county election office, and they confirmed I should be voting where I had been earlier. So I drove back, past all the Republican signs, and noticed the earlier Democratic ones were missing. I went inside again, talked to the same registration people who once more confirmed I wasn't in their system. This time however, they had me go wait in line to talk to the election judge there. He called the election office, and they recommended having me vote on a provisional ballot. I was handed a large envelope to fill out my name and address on, along with signing to indicate I hadn't voted anywhere else. I was then provided a ballot, and a smaller envelope to put the ballot into once done. I was sitting at the same table as the judge, and he took the larger envelope to fill out some information on. A few moments later, he asked if I was done voting, and I responded by asking if he wanted me to do so right there. His response was yes. I had to use my hands to cover up who and what issues I was voting on prior to folding the ballot up and putting it in the smaller envelope.

Really a frustrating experience overall, and really interesting to see the radical difference in polling centers 10 miles away from each other, both in the same city, but 2 different counties.