Not having voted in a primary in many years, I didn't know how it would be set up so that party members vote on their party's ballot. There were a bunch of election volunteers, some of whom had tags on identifying them as "Democratic watchers." I didn't see any that said "Republican." I sign my name on the roll as usual, and I don't see anything on it that identifies my party affiliation. The lady hands me a green slip of paper that she's filled out with my name, etc. Then as I'm walking toward the booth I notice that the slip says "Affiliated Democrat" or some such. I explain to the lady that I'm actually a Republican. She says, "Sorry, I should have asked," and fills out a pink-colored slip for Republicans.

So I could very easily have voted in the Democratic primary, despite being a registered Republican. There seemed to be a presumption that anyone voting at this upper west side polling place was a Democrat.

On top of all that, I found the ballot in the machine to be potentially confusing. The candidate's names were not on the same line as the lever that you pull to display the 'x'. You had to go up to the top to figure out that you pull the lever on the line below the candidate rather than the one above. Not exactly rocket science, but it wouldn't surprise me if 5 percent of the voters messed it up.

[Judith says: Oooohh, shades of Dade County 2000!]

. . . . My impression is that it was just incompetence, fueled by the fact having a Republican come in was such an unprecedented experience. I half expected the lady to look for my tail and pitchfork. They were clearly very used to having people come in who weren't on the rolls--I saw lots of people with these affadavit forms. But a real live Republican! They would have sooner expected Santa Claus to walk in (in which case they would have assumed he was a Democrat too). But it's not as though it's in the Dems' interest to have Republicans voting in their primary-- presumably the opposite is true

Doug says:

In 2000 I had a problem with this, I went into the machine and it was set for Democrat but they fixed it and I was allowed to vote.

I just got back from voting this time and they recognized I was Republican and set the machine correctly. They did comment that Republicans were rare in this neighborhood, but I didn’t think it was meant to be mean or anything.

JB says:

I had the same experience trying to vote on the Upper Eastside. It was all the more frustrating because I had this happen during the Senate primary in '06 as well. It is mostly a case of poor training by the BOE, but one of my poll workers was particularly bad. Instead of admitting the error, she tried to suggest I was actually registered as a Dem. This was clearly not the case. I had checked my registration when I signed in. (I'm on County Committee and technically I'm a delegate for one of the candidates who dropped out. My registration has surely been verified more than most.)

I made a bit of a scene because I was afraid the next person this could happen to might not be as assertive, and go a head and vote on the Dem line. That would be bad for both parties. A Republican would be disenfranchised, and the vote of a Dem heavily invested in a particular candidate could be cancelled out.

Phyllis says:

Was pretty weird. I vote at the 92nd St Y. I did so in the last election. This time, they told me that I was not registered and/or that they had no record of my existence or that I had ever previously voted. I executed a paper ballot which will not be counted until I send in further proof to the Board of Elections e.g. my driver'slicense, social security info, address, etc.

The place was overheated and a good natured pandemonium reigned. For one wild moment I decided that they were messing with me because I had voted for a Republican for President--but then I asked about whether this kind of thing had been happening all day and to other people and apparently this was a "happening" thing.

Oh, my heart sank, fearing further butterfly ballot lawsuits...

Judith says:

This is exactly what happened to me except the room was pretty quiet when I went, to 58th and Bdwy.

I had voted in 06 and still lived in the same address, but they had no record of me so I also had to fill out a paper ballot. I did have my driver's license and that seemed to be enough for ID. I also got paranoid and I joked with them about it - hey, I'm in hostile territory here, are you sure my ballot is not going in the trash? The nice lady said, see that police officer? He gathers up all the ballots and the end of the day and takes them down to Varick St. Don't worry, your ballot will be counted.

So i had to be content with that.

I would like to know if that happened to any Democrats, or just people voting Republican.