Voted. How To Vote, And What To Expect While At The Polls

The polls are open from 6 am to 9 pm in Beacon.

If you’re looking for where to vote for your Ward, then you can click here to see the list of locations we compiled, including easy links to maps to see which District within a Ward you reside in. Or even if you don’t know what Ward you are in, you can find out by following those links.

What Is It Like? How Do I Cast My Vote?

To my surprise, my very own husband called to ask me this: “How do I vote? Are there levers?”

Levers? No. Ok, so here’s what it’s like to vote in Beacon:

You walk into your polling precinct, aka “place to vote” as I call it. This is determined by “Ward.” There are four Wards in Beacon. It’s like big borders, and you live within a border of one of them. Within a Ward, there may be a smaller zone called a “District.” You probably never think about these things until Voting Day, but usually that little yellow card that comes in the mail prior to election time tells you. The last time I saw a card was during the primaries this year. You can get a list of polling locations in Beacon here.

Once you get to your voting location, there are several tables set up inside. The tables are divided by District (that border within a Ward) and by name (in alphabetical order). You will find your name at one of them.

You may be asked: “What District are you in?” If you checked the locations list here, you’ll know. “I’m in District 2!” you could say, and volunteers will tell you what table you should go to next. However, if you don’t know what District you are in (like me), there is hopefully a table dedicated to District Discovery at your polling place just for telling you this information. (Insider Tip: Check this first! It will save you from waiting in a line).

Once it’s your turn in line, a volunteer will hand you a large voting card with a privacy sleeve. You’ll walk over to tall table/desks with metal privacy walls around the top of the desk. A pen is provided for you to mark your circle bubbles of your votes. The directions at the top of the voting card will tell you how many people to vote for in each race. Like for governor, you would vote for one person. For judges, you would vote for seven names. Just follow those directions at the top to make sure you’re not over- or under-filling in the circles.

When you’ve completed all of your circles, you walk it over to a scanning machine. Another volunteer will be there to make sure the machine doesn’t break, because you are feeding the machine with your voter card yourself. Once you slide your card into the machine, it tallies it, swallows your card, and tells you what number voter you were.

I was #60!

Thank You To The Volunteers

A HUGE thank you for the volunteers who are running these polls. If when you go to vote, and you wish it were run differently, or had better signs, it’s best not to take your frustration out on the volunteers. They are your friends and neighbors, and may not be as experienced at running an event as you are. Same goes for any event run in Beacon (or anywhere in the world). If you feel passionately about how something is organized, then it’s best you sign up to volunteer, and help make it a better experience for all of us.