Tim Robbins' Polling Place Nightmare: He's Turned Away! (VIDEO)

Politically active actor Tim Robbins almost didn't get to vote in New York.

TMZ reports Robbins was turned away at his polling place.

There was some kind of ruckus and the cops were called.

Apparently Robbins has been voting at that polling place for more than a decade, but today his name wasn't on the register. They told Robbins he had to fill out a provisional ballot but he didn't want to do it. An argument erupted between Robbins and the poll worker. Robbins allegedly got loud and the poll worker said he was calling the cops.

Robbins accused the poll worker of trying to intimidate him so he wouldn't vote.

Robbins went downtown to the City Board of Elections to get proof he was good to vote.

That's where a TMZ camera caught up with him. Robbins held up his papers and told the camera:

"This is what you have to do to vote... I had to go down to see a judge... My name was not on the roll, and I'm not the only one. According to workers, 30 people in 5 hours had been taking off the rolls. You can do the math on that. 6 per hour, per district across America..."

WATCH:

Comments

[ObjectiveRealist]

It could have been so easy.

Robbins: "Do I look familiar to you?" [pulls out video-capable iPod or whatever the kids are playing with these days, plays choice bits of Shawshank Redemption]

poll worker: "Oh, sure, you were on that basic cable channel for like three months straight. Go right ahead."

Anyway, bless him for bringing some mainstream press attention [I assume] to real vote fraud, after all the despicable GOP attempts to frame erroneous voter registrations as a "scandal." In fact, those are absolutely irrelevant, unless Mickey Mouse shows up to vote both as a character and as the actor inside the costume.

:D

Karl Rove himself is an evil genius, but his minions include some real morons!

[VA Lady2008]

It's way past time we find a better way to handle voting. My suggestions?

1. Move election day to Saturday. Asking someone to stand in line for 5 hours on election day amounts, effectively to a poll tax. Poll taxes are illegal.
2. Allow more "early voting" for people who have made up their minds. If their minds are made up, they may as well get on with it.
3. Allow for "satellite voting" during early voting, meaning people can vote in any of several designated locations, perhaps in a county; rather than in just a registrar's office or the county seat. This means means holding a phone line open to some central data base to verify that the person really IS registered--you don't need a county wide network, although that will be faster-- and hasn't already voted, but a few phone lines seem like a small price to pay.
4. Have MORE voting locations.

The idea here, and I admit it's probably going to sound novel to the GOP, which wants to stay in office by PREVENTING people from voting, is to allow and encourage EVERYONE to vote.

[therseus]

Different president, different party, same lame comment by a Baldwin Brother:

"Steven Baldwin said he's leaving the country if Obama wins."

[Cybersquirt]

Adios! "D

[JeanV]

First off, knock off the angry, vitriolic comments about Tim Robbins. Honestly, it looks just like sour grapes and poor losers when you spout off like that.

Second, If my name had not been on the rolls, I would have been angry too. We can manage to take care of business electronically in almost every aspect of our lives except voting. I am angry at the resistance to national election reform that would require all states to use the same procedures and also to offer no-excuse-needed early and absentee voting and vote by mail. We need poll workers who are paid, not volunteers who almost always have an allegiance to a particular party.

Third, to those of you who express cynicism about voting at all, why are you even commenting here? If you don't care about voting, why care about Tim Robbins other than to see your comment in print?

[WillfromSF]

Although I can understand his anger, what I don't like was big shot Tim Robbins going balistic on the poll worker. These are people who don't do this professionally, only once every year or two. Most are unemployed. They have their instructions and they are not responsible for the system that left Robbins or others off the rolls. Should they treat Tim Robbins any differently than they would Tim Nobody? Suppose somebody was going around to different polling places all day trying to vote 50 times? What would you expect and want the poll worker to do then

[Okieborn]

Really Sad Timmo, you are one of a very few Repubs. that had that problem !!

[Cybersquirt]

He's not a "repub".

[Promisin1]

He also was a big supporter of BO. Did you see him on Maher's show

[drzoon]

election reform!

its time! and now we have the votes and the president to do it!

i was talking to a pollster/campaign manager last night and she said that is what she wants to spend the next few yrs on... to make it EASY AND FAIR for everyone. and yes, that includes the right wing too. but its time we do this.

[AynRand123]

I guess you haven't noticed that the majority of the "issues" occur in Democrat precincts. Yep, let's hand the keys of our future government to those pathetic idiots.

[Gumby69]

TMZ is a like rash.

[libwingoflibwing]

In my opinion all of this is a violation of the constitutional right to vote that *Congress* is supposed to regulate. It is far past time that we take our right to vote out of the hands of thousands of jurisdictions and have one, national system designed by Congress where every citizen is registered and can vote anywhere. This way you can't go to the wrong poll....you are a citizen of the United States, any polling place is the right place.

It's no problem that someone might vote in the wrong jurisdiction. The national polling system includes address constantly updated through the U.S. Postal system. Someone votes in the wrong state? The system records this and they are then prosecuted. Who's going to risk that? Someone votes twice? The system records this and they are prosecuted. Who's going to risk that? All of that can be done and the vote still remains secret.

How do we have national registration? Well if someone is naturalized they get their registration when they are sworn in. If someone is born a citizen they get it at getting their SS# or their Driver's Licene or at High School/GED graduation...if they don't already have it. If they get this while still under-age, it is put in the system to activate when they turn 18. It's simple and would solve all these problems.

[Pinkmarbles]

All this is pure rhetoric. No vote counts in a Presidential election. The only people that this profits are the local people you vote for. If they purged ALL voters off of the Presidential election rolls the outcome would have been the same. You DO NOT have the right to vote in a Presidential election. This is something the liberals invented because it makes people "feel good".

[justobserve]

Are you dreaming? Votes for President are separate and counted. That is why where voters can vote for straight party they have to mark for President and all others with straight party separately.

[DivergentMary]

Ballots are different from place to place: not even state to state, but also polling place to polling place.

On my ballot, there was no place to vote for a straight party. We had to fill in the circles for each person individually. Paper ballot ~~ no machine ~~ no straight party circle to fill in.

And I live in a Chicago suburb.

[Pinkmarbles]

Your vote for President DOES NOT COUNT, let me type that again it DOES NOT COUNT. There is no Constitutional right to vote in any federal election. This just makes the public feel good. If NO ONE VOTED on election day there would still be a President.

And to DivergentMary, how could each persons vote determine the Electoral College vote if they don't vote the popular vote. That does not even make sense.

[DivergentMary]

I don't understand your reasoning. What do you mean, "No vote counts in a Presidential election?"

Even if 'popular vote' doesn't determine the President, each person's vote for President determines the Electoral College vote . . .

[Cybersquirt]

Speaking of marbles...

[discerningcitizen]

It may have been a case where his polling place had changed. In Rhode Island, each polling place has a master list of all voters in the city or town and we were able to double check and get people to the correct polling place. I was the warden, but my clerk was the busiest worker looking up voters on the master list. Not one person had to vote a provisional ballot in my precinct. We had many more first time voters and they came armed with their voter information printout. Check online before you go. Maybe Tim should have been at PS XYZ instead of the Y?

[Vicious75]

Okay, I get the point. Sure whatever. But seriously, you know Robbins was loving every minute of that. The thing I really loved was on Monday Alec Baldwin threatened to leave the country if Obama lost. Which is kinda funny to me because he threatened to leave if W got elected. So shouldn't this be a welcome back party for Baldwin?

Oh yeah, and Steven Baldwin said he's leaving the country if Obama wins.

[ocalasatpro]

I don't think you are really getting the point. Have you ever been told you can't vote? It happened to me once. I threw the "same party at the poll" Robbins did. It was a feeling of utter insecurity­--horrifyi­ng at the time. Oh yeah, the cops came. No fun.

Wait until this is over. You'll find out that millions of votes were stolen, purged, misplaced, lost-- did I say stolen? Does anyone really think 48% of America voted for McCain, given that everyone acknowledges the new voters (like 13-14 million of them) were signing up to vote for Obama? It's just crazy.

Check out gregpalast.com

He has lots more about the voting.

[dc2nm]

The sad truth is I have friends and family across the country that have had the same problem...but they are average people that don't know to fight it so they filled out the provisional ballots.

I hope all the provisional ballots are eventually counted...they will point to some of the problems with the election process so we know how to improve it.

[DivergentMary]

LOL ~~~ the Baldwins must have lovely family reunions!

[rufuswinemaker]

Tim is a good American.I appreciate ultra liberals like him. I consider myself one and am proud of it. We need more folks .

[KickerBoard]

I had to laugh when I saw a contribution to "Michele Bachmann for Congress" on Tim's record of past campaign contributions . What was he thinking, lol?

[Warmglobe]

O f Course...what do you think Robbins wanted more....to vote without any trouble...or have something to make a scene about?

[macbabe]

all he wanted to do was VOTE!! ...

[Vicious75]

well, he certainly capitalized on his opportunity to get some attention didn't he. And I don't care what you think, you could drop six people from every district and the outcome would not have been different.

[diamond1]

I'm surprised there wasn't a Voter Watcher (volunteer lawyer) from the Obama campaign at the precinct. I worked at a precinct in Michigan and we had a few situations similar to this one. Actually, in Tim Robbins case he should have been offered to fill out a "Challenged Ballot". This ballot is counted along with all other ballots the day of the election. It's only re-examined if it's a close election unlike a "Provisional Ballot" which isn't included with the other ballots and is only looked at if it's a close electionl. Provisional ballots are really just a way to appease a voter but the vote really doesn't count.

[mamadeus]

I was an election judge and we did not have a challenged ballot-only provisional. Different states must have other voting rules.

[diamond1]

I was an election official as well and wouldn't have know about the "Challenged Ballot" if it wasn't for the volunteer attorney from the Obama Campaign. A challenged ballot is actually a regular ballot with a little piece of tape placed on it. In the Official Voter book, next to the person's name, you write in under comments "Challenged ballot". I was working with other election officials who have been doing this for 20 years and they didn't know about a "Challenged Ballot" either.