Click here to check your voting status of the State of Florida Division of Elections

There was discussion during last night's meeting about the importance of knowing where your precinct and its polling location are. A former Commissioner thought that one should just intuitively know where your polling location is and, short of that, it is your duty to know where you vote. That is even if your voter registration card says you are to vote in different location. We heard many stories last night of people having lived here five or so years and voting in about as many places.

I stumbled on a page of the State of Florida Division of Elections website. Click title for link. When you go there it will look something like this.

It will ask you for your first and last name, along with your date of birth. Then you have to agree that you have a right to view your own information and you are not trying to find someone else's which may contain information you don't have a right to see. Then you hit "Submit."

I did just that to see what happened. Here is how the page looked:

Along with your address, you will see your party affiliation, when you registered to vote for the first time in Florida and whether you are "Eligible to vote." In the box on the right side of the page, you can check your absentee ballot status, if you have one, and you can also get information on your precinct location. That link leads you directly to the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections website. That page will look like this. Here it is with my information:

Note that under my Florida Voter ID Number, it clearly says that I am eligible to vote. Further down it even has my current email address. Below that it has my precinct number and the name/location of my polling place.

My question to the Supervisor of Elections would be, if I can find this information, on-line, at home, with my own wifi and computer, why isn't this information as easy to confirm on election day at the polling location?

How many people whose status indicated "A - You are eligible to vote" had their provisional ballots thrown out due to errors by the polling clerks? Wouldn't the Canvassing Board have this information at their finger-tips when they met on the day after the election? Most people with smart phone could pull this information up themselves. According to Supervisor of Elections, this new Mini iPad system was "off the shelf" technology.

I'm left not understanding how this whole mess happened, unless it is due to gross, systemic incompetence.