Up until this election we were hampered by those 100+ year old, tried and true lever machines. Simple process, walk in and figure out which of the three table to sign in at. Not bad as there was a map on the wall or go to a center table where you give your address and they would tell you which table to go to. Sign in at the table, go into booth, flip the levers and pull the handle. If you had anything wrong like voted for both candidates for one position, it didn't let you pull the second lever forcing you, right there, to correct your selection. You saw a total of three volunteers (maybe four if you didn't know which table to go to), one took your name, the other had you sign the book, the third stood my the voting booth/machine and made sure you got in ok (I am guessing that's what he/she did as I never saw them do much else). Oh wait, there was another, the Lorna Doone lady (or was that at the blood bank
)My election experience
Fast forward to this year with our new and improved method, THE SAT (color in the oval) type paper ballots.
I walk in and there are a bunch of extra "section" tables as it seems they had to break down our population even further to handle the "crowd". No more map on the wall (not enough time?) so everyone had (me especially as I always found my table via the map) to go to the center table to find out which table to procede to. When I got there I had to not only give my address, but the nearest cross street. My street (about 3/4 mile long) was now broken into two "sections" whereas before my street and the two parallel streets on either side of my street were all one section and went to the same table. in their defense, maybe they anticipated longer delays with too many people at each of the three tables, who knows
So I get which table I am supposed to go to and all is as before, give name, sign book, all is right. Then the volly hands me this 17x22 inch paper with the names/parties and ovals to fill out and a "privacy sleeve" and instructs me to one of the "privacy booths". (I also get a card with 235 printed on it as that's the scanner I have to go to.) These privacy booths are nothing more than a slanted table with some cardboard on either side which goes up about 6 inches to give you your "privacy". However, they are low enough so that any person over the height of 4' 9" can see over the wall. (Not that I care who see's who I vote for) I go and fill out my ballot but only after having to switch privacy booths because the felt tip pen in the first booth had run out of ink. So far, so "not so bad" (as I expected worse), I took extra care to not vote for two people for one position so I was good on that. Then I flip it over and see the three propositions my town had put on the ballot. I knew I wanted to vote "NO" on one and "YES" on the other two. Well I misread the first one and voted "NO" but it was the second proposition I wanted to vote "NO" on. So I realize my mistake, go back to the table and get another ballot. I then had to start all over and redo all the other votes I had made (making sure not to screw up anything else once again) and get it right this time (in the booth it would have been as simple as picking up a lever and pushing down the correct one).
Now iss the big moment, put the ballot into the privacy sleeve and bring it over to the scanner to record my vote. A volly is there waiting and helps me load the ballot/privacy sleeve into the scanner. Of course I have the wrong end of the ballot sticking out of the front end of the privacy sleeve so the volly wants me to go back to the privacy booth to turn teh ballot around. F^&* that, I switch it around and there it goes into the computer. Easy as pie except, I didn't fully "black out" one of the ovals. Back to the privacy booth (no felt tip pen in hte area) back to the scanner, and scan. FINALLY, all done.
After thinking this through, I have to ask, this is progress?????
Used to be 4 maybe 5 steps.
Old style lever machines:
1) Find your table via map (go to step 2)
1a) Go to center table for assistance to find table
2) sign in
3) pull levers to vote (if mistakes were made you will be alerted and you can fix them right here)
4) go home
Now it could go on forever.
New paper ballot
1) Go to center table to get table you report to.
2) Go to your table
3) sign in
4) take paper ballot and sleeve to privacy booth
4a) hopefully your pen is there and if so, that it works.
5) fill out your ballot (any mistakes could keep you in an endless loop between step 4 and here)
6) Go to scanner and scan your ballot (again, any mistakes could keep you in an endless loop between here and step 4)
7) go home
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I don't see where this is any kind of upgrade. More steps in the voting process and I saw at least 20 more volunteers there last night than are usually there. Usually there are three to four tables (with one voting booth each) for each section with one table in the middle and each table has two vollys and each booth has one. So at a max there were maybe 14-20 vollys (3 for each section with 3 or 4 sections and 2 for the middle table with some extra). Last night there were 3 at the middle table, my section table had 2 (but now became 3 table so that's 4 more than last time), 1 for each scanner (again that's 3 scanners, 2 more than the old voter machines) and many more extras.
If they wanted to "FIX" the old lever type machines, they could have just made a model of the lever machine on a computer with instant feedback like "you have voted twice for the same position" or "your lever is not fully depressed". Oh... but it's the hackers that my invade the system. Well they can do that now, where the hell do you think the scanned ballots are going? DUH into a computer.
And if they are that worried, as soon as you vote, let it print out your ballot and you can check it. Heck print it out twice, one for you and one for "official" records so they can check when there is a tight race.
