Election day chat with the bald guy

The long haul to final results has begun, and anecdotally, voter turnout isn't exactly a tidal wave in Kootenai County. At my polling place only one other voter was there, and it was the third precinct he'd tried. I didn't stay long enough to find out if it was the right one.

Here's an issue just emailed to me from a subscriber that I'm hoping someone in elections can help answer. Meantime, I'll be checking in here through the afternoon and evening and invite you to discuss today's elections. - Mike Patrick

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I just got home from voting and the poll workers wanted me to fill out a form to tell the poll director if I am republican or democrat but the poll workers couldn't answer my questions. They showed me this one page letter that as far as I am concerned said nothing (just like politicians do) and it didn't answer my questions either. So now I am coming to you and maybe you can get them answered for me. If not I will wait and see if they will let me vote in May and then maybe talk to Governor Otter about it. Oh by the way nothing was put out to the poll workers about this so they are in the dark like the rest of us.

My questions are as follows:

1. Why wasn't it discussed in the paper about signing this paper?

2. If I don't fill it out will I be able to vote in the May elections?

3. If I remain unaffiliated am I able to vote for either the Democrat or Republican side as I choose?

4. Why weren't the poll workers trained better on this document?

These are the main questions I have for now. Maybe you can answer them in a column in your paper. Maybe you or Tom Hasslinger can enlighten us the voters on this subject a little more instead of just pushing it on us and we are not ready to fill out this form.

Thank you very much.

J.B.